My story is that a couple of months ago, I heard that Astan was going - only flown with Astan once or twice, but I was envious. Then when I heard that Ezza was thinking of going too, I jokingly said to my wife Janet "I wanna go over to California with Ezza and Astan" and she replied "well maybe we can do a deal - you go away this time, and another time I'll go somewhere?" (with our kids and a disabled daughter it's pretty hard for us to get away together). I was in a state of confusion and shock for about 4 days till I actually definitely decided to go! Eric, Astan and I told Sean that he was the one guy that should be going, but he was adamant that it wasn't possible. We understood, but were sad. Then, amazingly, Sean moved heaven and earth to see if he could come ... it looked dodgy for a while but it's now it's official and he's coming too! It's all incredible. I'll still be pinching myself when we are over there.

We are getting huge support from the guys in the States. I am awed to know that the "big guns" that I've read and watched on this forum for years are welcoming us and helping in various ways. Thanks to Chris and John for advice and help with planes and plans; Ian for advice, and Spencer for helping Ezza get the "cricket crashed" Kinetic 100 back in the air.

Heaps of stuff to organize. I've made an enormous box ... like Astan, it's mainly for what I might bring back rather than take over! I've booked a hire 4WD. Although we'll be spending plenty of time at Weldon if the wind is right we also hope to get to see most of the other well-known DS spots such as Norco (the current WR site), Parker, Vincent, Mars, etc. Woo-hoo!! And maybe get to an F3F race at Fermin on the 16th? (if it's on). I'm trying to work out how to get our phones working over there for calls and internet etc. I'm bringing a good camera and Handycam, and my daughter is going to loan me her Macbook Pro so I will be able to upload posts, images and edit video over there so I hope to post some up to date reports.

Incredible to think that the Deepend that Sean worked on for about a year may actually get maidened at one of the fastest sites in the world!

Breaking news is that Eric's wife Ali has a complication following an operation ... so he may have to put his visit back a bit. If you're into praying send a few up on behalf of Ali. And for Eric who's madly getting planes ready as well as last minute work on the farm and now has to look after the kids on his own as well.

Mar 27, 2011

Only 2 sleeps till I'm on the plane. Eric is still looking uncertain and is a bet each way till he gets some last minute information on whether his wife will need another op.

Astan a day later than me, and Sean on Friday.

Been packing gear ... bringing a well stocked toolbox in case we need to do some repairs without the locals to help. I've been scratching my head, unable to decide whether to bring my beaten up, heavy-ish JW. I almost never fly it here since developing the moldie addiction. I might leave it as it would reduce the amount I can bring back.

Mar 28, 2011

Ready to go

Well, I'm packed and ready to go but it doesn't feel right without you coming Eric. We've all phoned each other to commisserate. It's just one of those things. He is doing the right thing and there's really no choice in the situation. But it was really sad to get his text saying he couldn't come.

I am all packed up. Really hard to decide what to bring and I discarded the JW and the elastic sided boots, but threw in my Prospeed gun and an extra charger for good measure.

My box is huge, and the one small plane in it hardly fills any space. I threw in my transmitters, charger, gun etc in the box and I have heaps of insulation fibre and bubble wrap packing in there so it's all snug and tight. But it weighs 20kg!

Chris and Billy have kindly agreed to meet me off the flight when I expressed some panic ... thanks heaps again guys, it's great reassurance - without Eric it would be a challenge to get it to Spencer's place - he's kindly agreed to let us dump off the boxes at his shop. John is waiting for us to bunk at his place which I'm looking forward to.

I think it's gonna take about a week for it to sink in that I'm actually over there!

Mar 29, 2011

AUSSIE DS Safari begins!

I love Business Class! The seats were huge and there were controls to move them every way, including fully stretched out like a bed ... Wow! There was even a button to make the back of the seat massage your back slowly. I sat next to a really nice guy called Shane from Townsville who was on a work junket visit, and we got along well. But I did notice his eyes glaze over a bit when I told him about the reason for my visit. He perked up a bit when I hit the 468mph bit however.

The meal just after takeoff was EXCELLENT but I didn’t really sleep significantly. I spent hours sort of dozing. I think it took the whole 13 hours for it to sink in that I was really doing this!! Flying to LA, leaving wife, kids, work and all that stuff behind; meeting up with the “big dogs”, seeing the best guys flying at the best sites in the world ... is this for real?

I didn’t want to stay awake watching movies but I did treat myself to a couple of things. They nearly diverted the plane to Hawaii thinking I was having a grand mal seizure till they realized I was watching an Arj Barker performance from Sydney in 2009. And the movie “Due Date” wasn’t bad.

We had a tailwind so the flight was really short - less than 13 hours. We had an EXCELLENT breakfast before landing just minutes before sunrise - so we could see the city lights spread all up and down they coast. Even at 6:15am the volume of traffic on the long straight freeways was boggling.

Had to wait for the glider box to come out the Excess Baggage lift, and headed into Homeland Security where the grumpy tall mean looking guy questioned me about it and wanted to look inside. I was prepared to open my toolbox, find a Phillips screwdriver and undo the 20 or so screws holding the lid down but he said “Nah, let’s X-ray it” and even though he obviously despised me and the box, it got thru OK, and I was glad of the wheels I had put at one end as I dragged it around those zigzag paths they love to make in those places.

Once out into the land of the free I was disappointed to find that the first bit a real anticlimax. I had expected a massive mall style arrivals area where I could go to Starbucks and boost the flagging Caffeine levels, but it was a very basic and austere place, albeit with a coffee shop which I immediately availed myself of. There was still 40 mins till Chris and Billy were due to meet me so I wandered (well, rumbled clumsily with the wheeled box) to a very basic internet cafe thing and spent 5 bucks trying to send a few emails and texts, mostly without success. I moved to the cool outdoors, perching my box on the trolley so it would stand out ... and at 8am on the dot there’s a “Hey, Andrew!” and a big SUV pulls up with Chris and Billy. These 2 characters made me feel instantly at home. We didn’t drive far, pulled into a real Starbucks where they got coffee for themselves and Spencer, and just around the corner we found Spencer in his workshop.

We spent about an hour and a half there, generally having a great chat. My main thought was that here was the fastest DSer in the world, in the shop that the fastest plane was designed and built in, and it was all as relaxed as meeting up with old friends. There was a gorgeous complete K100 hanging up. Spencer handed me a tip panel to feel, while he put a K130 together on the bench. The weight of the tip panel just wasn’t right. It felt like a steel mold plug. We looked at parts that were being laid up and others coming out of the bag and all sorts of things. Spencer had to get back to doing things that actually made money so we finally left, but not before he loaned me a radar gun ... one of the really good Stalkers. I don’t know how he does all this stuff. He has toddler twins, a young daughter and an exhausted wife, so with all the home stuff going on during the days he’s often doing the work on Kinetic production late at night and well into the small hours. I couldn’t do it.

Next step was to get the rental car. We rocked up to the Thrifty desk to find that the cost of the insurances they recommended were higher than the cost of the car hire! My tiredness started to show as I was sure I had paid for insurance, but had no proof. Anyway, long story, but we sorted something out and drove out with a lovely red Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo just like the one we’d seen in the advert! But .... there was no way I was ready to drive it in LA. Just being IN the car at intersections was giving me weird feelings. What’s going on with the US road system?? Can’t they afford PROPER traffic lights? Or ROUNDABOUTS for Gods’ sakes!!!!??? It’s mad.

So Chris drove the red Cherokee and I gladly observed. The only thing still to sort out was a place for me to stay the night, and the guys reckoned there would be something down near Fermin. So we worked our way thru the city for a while then reached the beaches to the south, and pulled over at the top of some amazing huge cliffs which dropped down to beaches with some of the best surf breaks in the world, and where Chris had spent half his youth. Right on the lip you could feel the air forcing up like a massive upside down airconditioning duct; although over the generous swathes of grass and shrubbery on top there was hardly a breath of air moving. “Why didn’t I bring the Miraj?” I thought.

We picked up some great and cheap lunch then drove further, past mega rich real estate and Donald Trump’s golf course; trading stories along the way while the slopes just got better. The hills rose much higher behind us too, and there seemed to be no trees anywhere. Any one of these coastal cliffs looked better than any slope I’ve seen back home. Birds hovering way up. Clean air and huge lift, and grassy tops. “Fermin’s just on the other side of that hill” Chris said and I could feel the butterflies ... I couldn’t believe we were nearly there!

We ate our lunch next to the cliff and I surveyed the site with awe. The guys pointed out peregrine falcons, pelicans and other birds hanging and playing in the lift. Fermin must have a super special lift band because otherwise, it’s a weird spot to have an F3F site!! It’s absolutely right beside the coastal highway next to a scenic park (with trees). To land you have to cross the highway, climb up and scramble around and over the corner of a fence, then go for a sizeable walk up the hill to get to the landing area. It just seemed a lot of work after one F3F run!

The breeze was getting up a bit and I couldn’t resist the temptation to put my homebuilt SC3 together and have a fly. All went well and soon I was carving the 67” vac bagged V-tail moldie around on the lip of this amazing slope. Soon I realized that in my tired state, brain fade was not far away so I perpared for a launch and hovered up high; the guys helped me through the road crossing, the fence clamber and the hill hike and after some quick instructions I lined the SC3 up and the landing was good. What a hoot!!!

We visited a T-Mobile shop. After they checked that it worked in my Motorola Defy phone I got a prepaid sim card and now I am in the loop and can phone here or back home as much as I like.

Talking about phones with unlimited calls, I have to tell you guys that today Chris and Billy must have each made or received over a million calls, each. Billy had lots of work calls and Chris rang pretty much everyone famous in the DS and F3F world; some of them every seven minutes or so. In fact while I was flying the SC3 close to the lip, he shoved his Iphone over my earhole and said “here, say hello to Joe Manor”! Sorry for my awkward conversation Joe! Haha, nah sorry guys I’m not giving you a hard time ... in fact I can’t thank you enough for being so incredibly welcoming, generous and helpful. What a brilliant day. The final thing was that Billy led us to a cheap but decent motel just over the back of Fermin which is where I am now sitting writing this and getting very tired! I’ve managed to stay awake to 9pm so I am hoping I can soon get some sleep and get my clock reset to LA time.

This is great! Tomorrow we may watch Kyle Paulsen practising some F3F here at Fermin, then Thursday might be DSing at Parker!!!! Friday I pick up Sean (hopefully driving with some confidence by then!) and we head up to stay with John Buxton and meet Astan.

Mar 30, 2011

Skunked 4 times!!!

No need to be jealous any more guys ... today we got SKUNKED big time! Not only no DS, but no flying at all!

I did drive to Starbucks this morning, but to be fair there was hardly anybody else on the road. I had a slow start, uploaded the video and had a look but when the wind forecast for 50kts in the hills came in, we quickly decided that F3F here at Fermin was a lower priority and I switched to DS trip planning mode. Mysteriously, Chris got his work knocked over a bit quicker than anticipated and headed for my place. Meanwhile I got my new 2.4Ghz Multiplex Cockpit out and raced against time to get the Opus battery cycled, install the 2.4 receiver, set up the throws and mixing and do the CG. I almost got there before the Boz arrived in his Honda with the blotchy paintjob, and we loaded up the Cherokee and headed off via Starbucks again. Hey, at the fancy Starbucks they actually ask you if you want your Capuccino to be dry, medium or wet. I think they mean the foam, but I'm not sure. I'll ask tomorrow.

Driving on the freeway was pretty crazy - glad I wasn’t at the wheel! The volume of traffic on the road at any time is just crazy. When they say they “hit traffic” it means that it’s a car park. We saw lots of totally choked up roads, and this was around midday! When the traffic is “good” the road is choked up but moving along well, with the occasional slowdown. I didn’t realize but you can see snow peaked mountains to the east of this whole area. We got a lot closer to them as we headed to Norco, which is really just on the fringe of the urban area; the sort of place that has suburbs around, but people have horses and there are produce stores. The hills are really steep and very high by our standards, but atypically there’s thick green grass all over them from unusually high rainfall recently (they have dams overflowing that have been low for years .... sound familiar?? ) We met Chris’s friend Rick who was along for the fly but only has a laminating film covered wing. His little car wouldn’t get up the track, so we put him and his stuff in the Cherokee and headed up. The track runs up a ridge, quickly gets steep and then curves to the left so it’s traversing and climbing, which would be fine except that there was a huge rut in the track. We tried going around it but without describing the topography in detail, essentially the Cherokee got stuck. It really should be called an AWD, not a 4x4, as it doesn’t have low range and there’s no diff lock.

We backed down, but it kind of worked its way further off the “track”. We stopped, got out and assessed the situation. I was worried! It was perched precariously on an impossible angle, looking like it could just roll over and plummet into the deep gully way below. I should add that there is a very crumpled 4WD lying at the bottom of one of these gullies too, which didn’t inspire confidence. There was nothing for it but to slowly try to back down, so we did but it seemed to get worse. The front wheels side slipped on the slippery grass, taking the front further down the hill. I remembered how the insurance didn’t cover this sort of driving, and didn’t want to have to pay back the full cost of a Cherokee that I’d never be able to drive because 1) it was in America, and 2) it was rolled up like a ball of alfoil. Hmmm. Things got even worse about a metre further when the rear left wheel went into a hole and the thing tipped even more. I threw myself onto the right front fender so that if it went over, I could die honorably with it and not have any explaining to do. But inch by inch Chris crept it back onto the ridge and we were finally safe.

In all this, I totally forgot to take any photos or video! But I was worried. Normally, when I do off road stuff with cars, others tell me I’m crazy and take too many risks. That is; I’m used to other people seeming more conservative than me. I think the Californian guys are a level more crazy than me.

ANYWAY, that’s not what we’re here to talk about ... as regards flying, the wind looked perfect direction as we started to drive up. A half hour later after all the excitement, the wind had died off and swung SSW, so there was no point flying there. We had been SKUNKED!, Chris said. I was keen to walk up to the top, just so I could have a look but when Chris said it was probably good conditions back at Fermin, we decided to go back there.

Poor Astan, who arrived early this morning and managed to make contact today, has had some problems with the new planes he’s getting. The Needle wasn’t quite ready so they’re sending it up to John B’s place on Friday. He couldn’t get to Joe’s place to pick up the new D80, so there were numerous phone calls trying to organize another way out of that. Finally we agreed that we’d divert to Joe’s and get it. We left Norco with me having a driving lesson and I scared the crap out of Chris when he thought I was gonna pull out into a line of fast moving cars. We stopped for an excellent hamburger, swapped drivers and I had a call from home. What I’m getting at here is we clean forgot about the D80, but are going to meet Joe tomorrow night at the airport as he flies out on a work trip. Joe is really working hard trying to get the new D130 ready for the weekend after next, and isn’t getting a lot of sleep. These guys really put a lot into the DS planes.

Driving up the hill to Fermin, we drove over a thing on the road and were hit with a weird smell, and Chris advised me that we’d just been Skunked again, but this time it was driving over a dead skunk on the road.

Fermin looked beautiful. There was only about 45 mins flying time left so Chris slapped his (gorgeous) Stratos DS together and by the time we’d taken photos, talked to interested locals and started to jump the wall, the wind had shifted and almost died! Skunked for a third time! Ah well. Hard to feel bad about it when you're looking to the west at a gorgeous sunset amongst pink clouds over the ocean.

Back to my room, unpack the gear out of the car (it’s the sort of area where the car might be broken into) and head a few doors up to the Diner that has amazing food ... but it was shut again!!! Skunked again!!! To be fair we looked at their hours and they’re only open for breakfast and lunch, so now we know.

We had a huge “Southern Style” dinner - fried chicken, black eyed peas, yams and lots of other yummy stuff, but half of mine’s in the fridge for tomorrow! Now I’m up too late writing this. I haven’t got much done on video yet but reviewing it is enjoyable - I hope you guys find it funny too. Tomorrow the plan is to head for Parker in the morning, depending on the wind of course.

Although I got skunked today, I loved it. It’s all fun. I’m being treated like a king, seeing lots of new things and still can’t believe my luck being here.

Mar 31, 2011

Photos from Day 2

Aw shucks guys, I'm humbled, thanks! You're gonna regret these comments if you make me so cocky and my posts get longer and less relevant to gliders!

It's catching up with me a bit ... I woke up with a shocker of a headache in the middle of the night and after taking panadol/ nurofen I lay there in the quiet dark for quite a while imagining the noisy chaotic messy scene that was probably going on in my family's kitchen, and strangely missing it ...!

Anyway, a hot shower and a drive to Starbucks has one feeling more human again.

Here are a few photos:

Apr 01, 2011

It’s 10pm on the knocker and I’ve just got back to the motel. What a great day ... I DS’ed at Parker today! I need to get to bed coz I have to meet Sean when he arrives early tomorrow morning. I’m heating up a bit of the pizza from 2 nights ago, and I really want to write a report.

Started the morning a bit slow, coffee then microwaved the leftover chicken for breakfast, spent some time on the video. I kinda get a bit of video done, then take 10 times more, so unless we get locked in with bad weather for 2 days, I can’t see myself finishing it soon. Packed the car and Chris got here about 9:45, stopped off at Starbucks of course then onto the freeways again, but this time turning North to head for Parker.

Now I have to make a major confession here ... Chris was driving again but I was trying to learn some of the turnoffs. Suddenly he said “oh, the bonnet’s up” and I felt that horrible embarrassment of total stupidity. I was charging my transmitters while waiting for Chris but I don’t have a wall charger so I opened the bonnet (“hood”) and connected my little Turnigy charger onto the battery, and let the bonnet just close a click but didn’t push it down. I forgot about it when we left. So we were driving along with the charger and my Cockpit Tx perched on the radiator cowling, with the bonnet sitting up a bit. It could have been tragic, in many ways. We pulled over and it was all sitting there, in the same place and charging nicely. It is just another dumb thing to add to the list, which also includes me dropping my daughter’s Macbook Pro on the bitumen yesterday coz I didn’t realize that in addition to the velcro flap, the case also has a zip which was open.

We got a good run on the freeway, driving past LAX (Los Angeles Airport) on the 405, and past many familiar names on the signs ... Santa Monica and others. A huge mall called Galleria which is famous and people like Paris Hilton shop there. We saw a jet flying low and I asked if there was an airport nearby, and Chris said there were heaps of airports in this area! The rich and famous don’t want to be stuck in traffic!

Then it opened up a bit more but the country just looks weird, sort of interesting but sterile, no trees and lots of hills around with multi-layered striated rocks sticking out, but of course our view was always dominated by the huge freeway. Further along Chris pointed out a big famous rock structure, big striated slabs tilted at 45 degrees with a big point jutting up... man, I’m too tired I can’t remember stuff but it something like Vasquez’s rock which has been in many movies, including a famous Star Trek episode. From here you can see the Vincent DS site, which is pretty much on the San Andreas fault line. We discussed earthquakes, and Chris was saying that unlike Japan, the movement on the SA fault is where 2 plates are sliding alongside each other, rather than one going under the other like in Japan. I’d like to see the fault line which is also really close to the highway to Weldon, and might be able to do it with Sean tomorrow.

You rip along pretty quick on these freeways. I always thought the USA had a speed limit of 50mph, but that’s the “open road” limit I think - these freeways mostly have a limit of 65mph. Plenty of people go faster, but the cops are pretty savage.

Before long we were at Acton where you turn right to get to Parker Mountain. It looked great, and we were surprised to see a plane flashing round way up in the distance. It’s quite a long drive up the narrow rough track - maybe 2km but slow. The road gets to the top ridge and finally, we got to the flying saddle. It looked just like it does on my Aerofly simulator! There were a couple of guys there already: John Kim and Ray Gross, and the wind looked fabulous.

It really was exciting - being on the exact site where Joe Wurts “discovered” DS and experimented with it. How far has it come since then, when all the glider fraternity thought he was an idiot! DS is such an incredible effect. Fifteen years ago, no-one would have believed that anything much hadn’t already been discovered. But DS is really a newly discovered effect and it still captivates me. The military and NASA are apparently now experimenting to find out how they can exploit it too.

The conditions today were perfect. Not mega windy, but beautifully sunny, clear, an incredible view and enough wind to hit 220+ with a D80. The biggest reading on our wind gauge today was 38 mph. The direction was perfect, and the backside super steep, deep and calm. It was a stroke of luck to fly Parker today because it’s unusual to have east winds at this time of year. Tomorrow it should shift to west, which is what we need for Weldon, and it could be big conditions there this weekend. Sean and I are heading there tomorrow afternoon, and over the next few days the wind could be really good.

Chris got his Nyx Atomic (his favourite plane) out and put on an awesome performance of acro moves both on the front and the back. He had that thing whipping around so quick ... really fast booming laps, tight snapping eggbeaters, rolling circuits, super fast inverted circles ... you have to see it to believe it. He gave me a landing demonstration ... it’s a frontside landing but on the slope so you have to pop-and-drop to lose energy on the approach. There are rocks everywhere so you need to pick the clearer area and turn into wind near the top, with flaps, and hover in.

Other guys turned up and we soon had a lineup of cars, with a mess of planes strewn everywhere. The ground at Parker is decomposed granite, so it’s really slippery and easy to end up @rse up. Yesterday I was charging the SC3 battery in the car with a dodgy wire setup connected to a cigarette lighter plug. There was a puff of smoke .... (“pull out that plug!!!) but I didn’t realize until today that the wires had melted so I had to pull the pack out of the Opus and it took ages to charge (this was because I accidentally left it on, sigh). So I took lots more video and photos, and got to know some of the other guys.

Soon I was in the air with the SC3 but as previously, it was a handful to DS. I did get a speed of 161 which was great, but the flying wasn’t pretty. I tried hard, but there was lots of overcorrection, failing to get under the shear and banging around in turbulence. But I DID do a perfect landing!

Chris got his D80 out, a bit worried about whether there was enough wind, particularly for landing a heavy plane. It’s easier to land when there’s strong wind because you can slow down crabbing into the wind on the top of the ridge. This is his “light” one at 200 ounces. Initially it wasn’t happy, looking sluggish, but when it hit 180 it came alive. It was inspiring to watch, really slicing smooth circles and nice noise. He got 222 I think and made a good landing too.

Spencer then turned up too, taking a much needed break half day break from work and family, and flew an Opus MCT. He flew it hard and got 215 or something. It went so nicely that I thought: I have no excuse, I have to fly mine! So after recharging the battery I set it all up, did my first 2.4 range check, and launched. No worries, it flew. The CG was perfect. It didn’t have enough elevator for me, so I dialled up the rates a bit. I knew I had to dive in, but I was shaking, believe me. I even felt sick with the nerves! Some words of guidance and and encouragement from the guys, some deep breaths and I plunged over the back. First lap; Wow, that was orright! Bit deeper, bit harder turn at the top, bit lower at the top ... I was really impressed with how well this thing held its line. I really felt like I could visualize the line and make it track. Great plane. Anyway I got up to 159, and did another great landing. It was a big moment. I grabbed the wind gauge for a few minutes and it was between 20 and 29mph on the lip.

The wind got gradually lighter and we spent hours chatting and fiddling, watching guys flying foamies even 3 in a circuit; usual story and no different to a good day back home but more blokes and lots of great stories. As with our flying mates, there are guys from all sorts of backgrounds and with greatly varying skills. I learnt that just over the next ridge, the highway drops into the Mojave desert and the USAF Edwards airbase was not far. NASA has their space shuttle landing area. There’s the place where hundreds of disused aircraft are put in storage. It will be an interesting drive tomorrow! Parker Bob lives close by to the hill and says that they probably have 300 flyable days a year on Parker!!! I was super jealous! We probably have 300 NON- flyable days!!!

Suddenly someone shouted that the B2 Stealth bomber was flying over! The huge delta wing black jet. This was a very rare sighting and we wondered if it might be heading for Libya.

So I got to meet a good bunch of guys today. I may have missed some but from memory, it was:

Me and Chris (Daboz)
Ray (not on RCG)
John Kim (JohnKim)
Bruce Tebo (not on RCG)
Tim (HiDesertFun)
Mike (Eflying)
John (Bloodnguts)
Spencer (SLLsomething!)
Bob (ParkerBob)
Mark (a new guy, not on RCG)
and I even got to speak to Jason Lilly on the phone (maker of the Thundermaster, Thundertaker)

It remained lighter but perfectly flyable all arvo. It was hot and we drank a heap of water, and although we had done enough flying, it was too nice to leave. I decided to have another fly of the SC3. Man it goes nicely on the frontside, but again it was not good DSing. Chris thought it looked a bit tail heavy, so I decided to have a fiddle, landed and cancelled out any flap movement with aileron and added some nose weight. The ailerons had equal up and down so I cut the down by half. Soon as I launched it I could tell it was tracking better, and when I DSed it, it felt like a different plane. We weren’t even gunning, but it was nice. I did a few landings, which were hard due to the lighter wind. Finally we headed off.

The action didn’t stop there. We went back to the rental car depot at LAX to sort out something with insurance, and mentioned that one taillight wasn’t working. In fact the whole light was dead, so they swapped us quickly into a newer, clean, fully fuelled up Cherokee! I’m devastated that it’s silver, not red, but I can live with that. Meanwhile we were coordinating to meet Joe Manor to collect Astan’s D80. With perfect timing we met up just as we were leaving the rental yard, and I insisted on driving us back to Fermin. Chris was squirming; he wasn’t comfortable! But I must have driven OK and he relaxed.

That’s it! I’ll see if I can get some photos up, and get to bed. Goodnight from here, and have a good day over there!

Attached Thumbnails

Apr 01, 2011

Day 4 - Sean joins the action

Thanks for the feedback guys. Cheesh, pressure .... now I feel like I have a fan club and I have to keep up these reports no matter what! Haha! It’s 10pm now and Sean and I are in a motel at Lake Isabella. I’m pretty faded but I’ll bash out a report.

Yes Chris I picked that photo out for the wing flex! That new Nikon 3100 is really a great camera. I had an Olympus SLR for years - it was expensive, and the lens was expensive too, but this entry level Nikon straight away performs much better than the Olympus ever did. I’ve never been able to get good pics of planes DSing before. Wing flex ... it was amazing to see how hard that Nyx Atomic ripped around. I could barely follow it myself, let alone track it with a camera!

I had a BAAAaad sleep last night. Anyway up at 6:20, try to get humanoid with a shower, and pack the car. Always takes longer than expected, and I thought to fire up the laptop to check whether Sean’s flight was on schedule. Dang how do I find it ... there ...Holy Cr@p! It was 35mins early!! Oh well, there goes the Starbucks stop-off! I took off for my first big solo ... set my teeth, gripped the wheel and drove that freeway like a local! Well not really ... every exit I took successfully I said “Thank God!!”

LA airport is just huge. It took a bit of searching but I found Sean. We shook hands. This was big!! Here we were, both in LA, and on our way to Weldon. The poignancy of the moment wasn’t missed on me, until ... Strewth Man!!! That box is HUUUUUGE! Well, we just had to get it to Spencer’s to unpack it. We reorganized the Cherokee’s seats so Sean sat behind me. Tried to lean the front seatback fully forward, but it wouldn’t go. So Sean took the headrest off the passenger front seat, and slid the box right up to the windscreen. Only 2 inches to spare. Great, let’s go. Stop! It COMPLETELY blocked the vision to my right. This was pretty dangerous. But ... there was no other option, and the nasty airport man was coming back, so off I went. Sean couldn’t see out that side either and even if he could, he was too sleepy and overwhelmed to be much help! Nah, just kidding, he was OK but he was a bit spaced out and looking at him, I clearly remembered how that felt.

Amazingly we got to the corner near Spencer’s workshop. Strangely there were some loud bangs and scrapes from the right side on the way, and I found a couple of mirrors and a bloodstained bike glove stuck in the right side doors, but as far as I could see we arrived without incident. We parked right next to the Starbucks on that corner and went in for the coffees we badly needed, later finding out that the red paint on the gutter meant “no parking permitted”. We narrowly missed getting a ticket ... the cop was literally on his way up the street booking parked cars when we left! Anyway, in walks Spencer for his morning coffee too! So we all sat and talked and Spencer got to know Sean, or at least the bit of Sean that was still interfacing with the external world.

Then it was round the corner into Spencer’s workshop, where Sean came more alive looking at the K130, layups, molds and gear. Did you know they buy lead shot for $15 per kg in the US? It’s about $100 in Oz. Probably coz of the huge gun trade here. Spencer almost had a fit when I said guns were not legal in Australia. For ballast, if you mix the tiny shot with bigger shot, it’s 10 - 15% denser than either of them. He’s tested it.

He generously replaced the melted wires on my 2nd battery pack and Sean unpacked the coffin ... I mean ... glider box. Sean had thrown the Erwin in at the last minute because he’s happy to fly it like a foamy in rough landing spots. But at the airport they complained that it was 3kg over weight, so he unpacked it and took all the ballast out and put it in his suitcase. Also, they made him take the batteries out of his transmitter!

We went back to Thrifty and had Sean added as a driver, then with the aid of the TomTom generously loaned to us by Spencer, we headed north along the same route as yesterday. When we got to Santa Monica, Sean knew where lots of places were because in his work, testing flight sim planes, he practices landing approaches here on the sim! He knew the area really well! We droned along on the massive grey freeway, past that rock place and finally to Acton so Sean could have a gaze at Parker, and we pulled into MacDonalds for really nice burgers and coffee. By the way the local’s don’t call it Macca’s. Maccy D’s, or just MacDonalds.

Sean looked out the window and quietly said “I can’t believe I’m here, looking at Parker Mountain”. He asked if there was any chance I would be interested in driving up it and of course I leapt at it! We had to get a few phone directions from my chauffeur Chris who was off work today, and bumped up that long dirt road. Again, it was beautiful at the top and the amazingness of all this was sinking into Sean. There was a light breeze coming from the opposite direction to yesterday - so I got out the SC3 and flew it, and can now say that I’ve DSed Parker in both directions! Sean however felt that it probably wasn’t wise for him to fly today, being so jetlagged. He was really stoked about seeing Parker.

Into the Mojave desert we headed north. It’s a weird landscape, really grey and bare. Normally it’s even more bare and dead, but there’s been rain lately so there’s more vegetation than usual but it’s all a dull olive grey. The dirt/ rock hills are massive. I thought they were closer until I saw a line of power line towers which looked miniscule, and hard to see as they ghosted out against the drab backdrop.

We turned off to go and visit Edwards Air Force Base but it was quite a deviation so we did a Uturn and roared back onto the freeway. Soon we climbed into hills with spectacular bare cliff formations which looked like a cross between a mini Grand Canyon and the coloured sands on Rainbow Beach. Then turned left to head for Weldon, and over a pass at 5000 feet, and down into the spectacular Kern Valley with towering bare rocky peaks all around. Sean was commenting that there were so many ridges around that might be good for DS, and as he pointed to a huge ridge to the left, the lady in the TomTom said “You have reached your destination”. Huh? What ... hey, that’s Weldon!!!! Not the big ridge, but this hill that looked really small running off it! We recognized the hill and the tracks from the videos and from ogling it with Google Earth, and we knew straight away where to go! I felt quite nervous at the thought that we were about to reach the Mecca of DS ... Weldon Hill. The track is rough but the Cherokee climbed it OK, up to a deep saddle then turn right and climb up the northern ridge and a fair way along it, then next thing we were up on top!

Nobody else was there, and there was less than 10 knots of wind from the Lake Isabella side to the west. It was hot, too. We soaked in the scene for a minute and shook hands. We were here!!! The very top of the knoll is completely bare, all soft sandy decomposed granite with the top of a round boulder protruding in the very centre, and there was the radar shelter rock wall, just like you see it in the videos. Similarly, looking down the east side looked so familiar, the white streaks on the landscape and the farms below. Now that we were up here this didn’t look like a small hill ... it was a heckuva long way down there! And the backside was so deep, and so steep.

Suddenly Sean changed his mind and decided that he wasn’t too jet lagged to fly today. Despite the exotic location, things were normal again! We were back in a familiar mode, unpacking and putting planes together and getting ready for a fly. Just like so many tens of days back home, except this was Weldon. Sean put the Erwin together, spent a while trying to find his hat and thinking he’d gone mad until he found it where he’d put it on the roof, and locked his Airtronics SG10 radio into this amazing sexy carbon cradle he’s made for it, and attached a special shoulder strap he bought for it too. I launched it awkwardly ... lift wasn’t amazing. He took about 30 seconds of frontside flying before he dove in over the back. Honestly, I think what was going thru Sean’s mind was that he could have a heart attack or be struck by a meteorite any time, and now that he was here he was gonna make darn sure that he DS’ed it. Any previous fatigue or anxiety was sublimated, and he just lit up the sky with that trusty old Erwin. It slashed and ripped around, feeling out the shear and the lines. There was just no limit to how deep you could go, but you could also do ripping tight turns high up in the shear, well over the back. I got a bit of video. Sean was locked in, calm and focussed, but his thumbs gave that Erwin a DS bitch of a spankin’. He just kept saying; “it’s so smooth, both front and back”.

Then I DS’ed the SC3 and can’t add anything more ... it’s good. We sat and fiddled with stuff for a bit, there was no rush and plenty of day left. Then Eric rang and we talked about the possibility of him still coming out ... jury’s still out on that one. Eric, great to hear things are coming together and good to talk to you on the phone today ... man we all really hope you do get here, even if it is a shorter trip. Honestly, I feel like if I had to go home tomorrow I would be grateful for the few incredible days I’ve had. It’s been amazing and I have to thank the locals again for their generosity.

Then a white Landcruiser nosed onto the top ... John Buxton and Astan had arrived. It was great to finally meet John and get together finally with Astan. John is such a focussed flyer ... he barely had let go of the driver’s door with his left hand while his right one was pulling a Pike Giant out of the back! But he never got to fly it ... he spent the hour or so gunning for us. Astan got his D40 out and really flew it well, up to 127mph. Sean got a second wind and actually maidened his Needle DS Light, which went fabulously and DS’ed to 149, first flight, still needs tweaking. I got 131 with the SC3 I think. John had to race off then, taking Astan, so it was back to me and Sean watching the beautiful sunset over the lake and the shadows moving up the mountains. The sun had been a pain when on the frontside (same as us flying westerlies in the afternoon), so once the sun set and the wind was picking up it was tempting to fly again, but we wisely decided to bail, feeling pretty tired. Soon, back on the bitumen and driving west towards the lake in the half-dark, you could see 5 short glowing white streaks in the sky up above the dark mountains; from jets up high in the sunshine - it looked pretty cool.

Sean and I decided not to stay at John’s tonight as there’s a crowd there, and more Swiss guys turning up very late. We want to get some rest, so we forked out for motel rooms here next to the lake. It’s a really tiny place, not even a town, and we went to a restaurant that does great steak meals. The prime rib was on special, but rather than the full thing I took the “mini” serving. When it came I looked at the waitress - “is this the MINI one??” It was huge.

Anyway, another fantastic day. As you’ve probably read, they’re saying Sunday could be really big. If so, I’ll be happy to just be there and witness the action. Any flying would just be a bonus.

Good night!

Apr 02, 2011

Morning at the lake

It's 9am now and it really looks beautiful outside at the lake. I feel pretty yuk this morn with a migraine. Can't even razzle up the energy to drive to the next town 10mins away for a proper coffee - just had some of the weak stuff here which is like what the church ladies serve!

Well I think we can boast that we've stayed at the closest motel to Weldon hill! Pretty noisy with traffic though. They don't seem to lower the speed limit thru country towns. Sean hasn't emerged yet and I'm planning not to disturb him ... he didn't sleep the night before leaving, and not much on the plane, so had 2 hrs sleep in 48.

Just gonna wait till we hear from the guys in town as to what they're doing, and meet them when they come out. I understand that at John's place there's Asto, Ian and Nick plus the 3 German/ Swiss (not sure?) guys arrived around midnight last night too.

Anyway, better go and try to get some more of that crap coffee into me. Here are a few pics - you might be able to see from the ribbons that there's a breeze already. Internet's fast here which is nice.

Attached Thumbnails

This is the sunset at the motel I stayed at near Fermin.

Apr 03, 2011

Here I am again! Internet at this back country place we’re staying at. For the 3rd night in a row, we stayed on the hill till 7pm again. Around dusk you can sometimes hear coyotes howling way below, and the frogs in the marsh can also be heard from the top. Anyway we then had an incredibly lovely dinner at the Chinese restaurant in Lake Isabella, and John Buxton paid for it all, for 10 of us! Apparently he always does! The locals here are incredibly generous. Last night Nick insisted on paying for the Pizza dinner! Maybe they’re hoping to come to Australia soon!

After that, we drove up around the lake and are now at "Sequoia Lodge", on the edge of the Kern River. I’ve never used a GPS (TomTom) before but it’s really useful! I am a map man by heart but haven’t looked at a map since being here. Anyway this is a fishing/ hunting area so there are camping grounds and fishing lodges etc. Billy recommended we stay here. But he didn’t mention there’s no mobile reception!!! EEEEeeek! Ah well at least there’s free wireless. It’s dark so we can't see it but apparently it’s very beautiful. Tomorrow is probably gonna be a lighter wind day, and we could do with a day off, so we might go north for a drive into the mountains to see the Sequoia forests and some snow tomorrow.

When I say “we” it’s now me, Sean and Astan. Sean and I have the Cherokee, and Asto has his brother-in-law’s Honda. Here there was a room with 2 beds, and one with one, so we banished Astan to the single one as he snores (he didn’t even know!)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Backtracking to where we left off, dear reader, our last update was yesterday morning our time, at the Lakeview Motel. I had a bad migraine and didn’t feel great. Sean emerged at 9am having had a great sleep. He was keen to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road so we packed up and headed into the Lake Isabella township where we bought some stuff at a really hick supermarket, then found that there was a much bigger set of shops further down. We went down and got coffee at the Starbucks, which is inside a shop called “VONS”. I will have to get a photo of me in front of it sometime. Made some enquiries about phones for Sean and he spent ages trying to get Telstra in Australia to unlock his Iphone (which they were already supposed to have done) and getting cut off repeatedly. Went to a cafe to get some lunch (turkey sandwiches ... and by the way they’re 2 for the price of one today! Bonus!!!) and to use their internet.

While hanging around the shopping centre we had the privilege to see the most stereotypical apparition of a ... well, I don’t know exactly what she was, but she was driving a real big hillbilly pickup truck, dirty clothes, fag with 2 inches of ash hanging out of the corner of the mouth, and greasy hair falling around the angry red face and large amounts of body fat almost oozing out the open window. We stopped there just gawking at this image and to top it off, at that point she got impatient at the cars taking too long to back out, and thumped the steering wheel with a fat forearm and yelled out the window “Aaaaaaw, c’MAWN” and planted her foot to roar the truck between the offending peaceloving parkers.

There’s so much interesting stuff. Going overseas is so stimulating because you’re constantly noticing things that are different, and often give you an awareness, or a different perspective on things you take for granted at home. Here, you have to pre-pay your fuel! It’s weird. They won’t turn on the pump till you’ve been in and paid them, or given them your credit card. If you want to fill up, you can give them excess cash and go back for the change when you’ve filled. Bananas are 49c a pound here! You can turn left on a red light if you stop and look first. All the shops and buildings, (even in new places) have really drab colour schemes. Many painkillers here contain about 65mg of caffeine as well! They sell artichokes (nice, but they take a long time to cook).

There was so much interesting stuff yesterday that about 3pm I said “I don’t want to write a report tonight! There’s just too much to write about!” There’s no way I’m going to be able to cover all that we’ve seen and experienced. If I try to give a blow by blow report of everything over the last 2 days of flying and being on Weldon hill, it will take 10 pages. So I intend to give an overview. It’s late and I need sleep, and you don’t wanna get bored.

Firstly, the guys. There are so many nice blokes involved in DSing around here. I can honestly say I haven’t met one prick yet. The locals are just so nice and so generous. We have a lot to thank them for. Once we met them we get calls offering help and advice.

Secondly, the site. Weldon is kind of the perfect place to learn to DS, plus it’s a world record class site. The shape is good, the lift on the front is clean, and the landings are pretty easy. You fly out to the right low down, flaps to lose speed, and soar back up along the rising ridge towards yourself and if you get it right you can crab it into wind and set it down gently. Jason Lilly’s first landing I saw yesterday could have got him a hundred bonus points at a thermal comp!! But it’s very easy to get wafted over the back, and I must be a bit dumber than the average hubcap because I have done that 3 times now, which is how the nose on the SC3 got broken. The ground is all soft sandy decomposed granite so it’s forgiving but there are also quite a few boulders around. I was filming Jason landing with the Thundertaker later, and it was going beautifully and could have been a hand catch, but at the last moment it got lifted up, still crabbing sideways and suddenly this very heavy gorgeous DS ship was hanging 6 feet above our hire car, in the precarious position of being just above the shear! With flaps on it was gonna go over the back onto a few guys and a dozen or so planes, so he had to retract flaps to get it to penetrate ... it moved about a foot forward then broke into the shear and dropped like a rock onto the Cherokee. But Thomas Wackerlin from Germany lunged across the bonnet and grabbed it by the nose! The tail smacked down on the windscreen but nothing was marked. Thomas was the hero of the hour - it was an incredible save!

Hey it’s nearly midnight and I really need some sleep. I’ll try to get some more out in the morning. I have some good pics. Goodnight from us!

Apr 04, 2011

Up for Monday

We are up and about. The joys of bad backs, haemorrhoids and the need to shave don't go away when you go overseas! We worked out how to use this coffee maker but it's a poor substitute for Starbucks. Asto's back is bad this morning. We were actually glad that there was no wind forecast for today so we could lounge around, have a day off and look at some scenery. But ... as you've seen, the wind has unexpectedly picked up for Parker ... and despite our doughy state we think we'd better head for the action again! It's about 2 1/2 or so hours drive but what the heck. That's what we're here for.

I sat down to hammer away here and I have uploaded the photos - they look nice ... but my companions are nagging at me to quit this and get packing. So, dear readers I must once again beg leave to postpone our delightful interchange to a less windy time.

Thanks heaps for all the good feedback. It makes it all worthwhile!

Oh, yes, I did mean RIGHT turn on red, not left.

Gonna have to find a washing machine soon .. recycling jocks and socks now .... OK, too much information ... I will desist!

Sean with his home brew DS Deepend at Weldon, CA.

Aussie, Sean in foreground

Andrew and Ian helping out on an

Lots of D-80,60,40 Kinetic 100's, Atomic Wedgee, Nyx, Vector Carbon Birds and a Thunder Taker in the bag

Aussie Sean and Astan

can't name them all

Seans Needle

again Seans Needle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRFOx4LLfb0&feature=player_embedded

Apr 04, 2011

Catching up

Here's some stuff I've written already but haven't been able to post yet. The internet in this motel is really crap slow, but at least the rooms were cheap.
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Monday 1pm. We’ve just driven about 2 hours from Kernville towards Weldon. Sean is driving the Cherokee - he is the brightest of the 3 of us today. Asto’s back is pretty bad. Not too bad while driving but when we went into this Primo Burger place (OK Chris I concede they’re much better than Maccy D’s) he was suffering with it pinching badly. The bored looking girl who served us had the most incredibly intricately braided hair I have ever seen - her whole head looked like a crocheted black rug and one side transitioned into long braids. I am feeling tired. I think we all got a pretty good sleep; it was a really nice place to stay. But sitting here as a passenger my eyes are sore and I feel a bit shot. Nice to have a chauffeur again. Anyway I’ve got the laptop out to do a bit of typing while we drive, to post later when I have internet. The sun reflecting on the alumium case of this Macbook is a pain!!

Just phone Daboz for a weather update and he said it was increasing at Parker ... probably 40mph on top, so things are looking good and we’re heading for the action.

What’s needed with this report now is to try and give a feel for the atmosphere of Weldon. I really struggle with what to say. In a lot of ways, it’s just like a day hanging out with the local guys. Same sort of feeling as a good day at Beechmont with Timbuck, Ezza, Kev, Sean, Asto, Shane, Kane and others ... or the one amazing day we had at Bandicoot. Its sort of settling to find that you do fit in ... in a way I think that was one of my fears, that I just wouldn’t fit in, but it’s just like being at home in many ways. It keeps you grounded to be doing the same things with your planes that you do at home - charging, fixing, tweaking and to be with a bunch of guys who are interested in the same things as you and who talk the same language. Well, the language we speak about our planes I mean ... not the American language; that’s completely different! Digressing, but did you know that over here, the term “lucked out” means that you had GOOD luck? Unless I’m misled, we say that when we get “Skunked!!”

So it’s a familiar environment to be in, except for a few minor details like: instead of 5 or 7 planes spread out on the grass, there’s 30 or more on the bare dirt behind the cars, and more in the cars. When you pick them up they feel impossibly heavy. The faces around you are guys who you’ve read so much about for years. Some of the planes are ones that you’ve watched on the videos, like the huge Thundermaster! Jason Lilly flew the Thundertaker which is 120 inch - his own design, and such an incredible work of art and engineering. But when I met him, chatting behind the back of his van I noticed a massive fuselage inside ... it was the Thundermaster. You have to see the size to believe it. He hasn’t flown it yet. Every time it’s mentioned, he says “Oh, yeah, that thing is just so much fun to fly. It’s so EASY to fly!”

Also it’s exciting to know you’re on a hill that’s 400mph capable and to wonder if you might get to see those speeds. During both days there was DSing happening pretty much all the time - it whistles away in the background and although the rocks where they stand are only maybe 20 metres from the furthest car, it’s easy to miss someone doing something amazing because you’re chatting or fiddling and not watching. I missed seeing Bruce Tebo doing his acro thing yesterday which I regretted because he’s about the best. He is gifted, but also very determined, getting out to practice somewhere most days (can you believe that?).

This is a very wide view of Weldon hill, from the west (Lake) side.

Closer view from the west side (front side)

Much closer view of the top from the west - you can see the cars on the top

Very wide view of the hill from the east (back) side.

A bit closer on the backside

As you're starting to drive up the east side - looking up at the cars with full zoom

Starting to drive up 118.5 KB · Views: 76

In the saddle having turned right to head up

Climbing up 112.7 KB · Views: 76

On top of the flying knoll 56.9 KB · Views: 85

The general scene on arrival on Saturday 76.0 KB · Views: 92

Jason Lilly showing the HUGE centre panel of the Thundermaster.

The massive fuse of the Thundermaster

Asto DSing the Needle for the first time. Actually I think it was the maiden.

Asto's hold on the sticks. I was amazed at the way he rests his left forefinger on the elevator from above it - not pinching it and not using the thumb on the top.

Aston very proud of his first effort with the Needle.

Nick helping Jason put to together the Thundertaker

More of the scene at the back

Asto stoked with 193mph for the Wedgie. That's pretty incredible.

Jason Lilly assisting Sean with launching the Deepend.

Deepend doing what it was made for, and doing it beautifully. It has a unique whine and hit 251 on its maiden

Asto very happy with 239 (I think) for his D80 also on its maiden!

Jason Lilly with the perfect landing approach. He could have got the 100 bonus points at a thermal comp with this one.

Touchdown!

All the troops except me at dinner at the Lake Isabella pizza place. Well, I was there but I was holding the camera. OK, I could have .... aaaah, shaddup!

Next day, Sunday, looking up from the east side (back side)

Another "zoom up at cars on top" view.

Beautiful colour scheme on Tim's Nyx.

Sean readying the Needle for another effort.

John Buxton DSing the Pike Giant, an F3J (thermal duration) plane in light air. It was really ripping tight circles.

Pike Giant against a backdrop of mountains

My SC3 proudly wearing the stickers my friend Alan made for this trip.

My Opus with the Aussie DS safari stickers.

Astan flying the Wedgie again. Perfect bottom turn and pushing it hard. Everyone wants a Wedgie

Apr 05, 2011

Continuing from before ... one issue on the trip is that we use a different mode to the US and the Euro guys! Which makes it pretty impossible to “have a go” of someone else’s plane. It’s common to hear someone say “why don’t you have a fly of it” and then “oh, no, that’s right ... darn!”.

Asto was a bit of a hero on Saturday, having had almost no sleep but maidening the Wedgie, Needle and D80. He was relentless, taking every opportunity to be up flying and digging really deep. The many hours of practice really paid off for him. He looked like a pro. Good speeds for all - most amazingly 193mph for the Wedgie. Everyone loved that plane. It was nice to see the big dogs of flying and construction turning it over and saying “it’s perfect. I want one”. Be prepared for some orders Shane! The Atomic Wedgie is the concept and construction of Shane from the Gold Coast.

I’m jumping around here but it was the same with Sean’s Deepend. When he got it out and put it together, people literally stopped in their tracks. They were totally stonkered that he built it totally himself. And when he said it was a vac bagged wing, they just about kinked their necks looking to see if he was kidding them ... “No sh!!!t ... man this thing just rocks.” Etc, etc. It must have been very rewarding for Sean to see these top guns of DS peering at every aspect of the plane, loving its wing plan, the weight, the stiffness and the finish. I get a little choked up thinking how Sean really wondered when he would ever get the opportunity to maiden it. And all of a sudden, here we are in California, and he’s maidening it at Weldon. Sounds like a soppy made up DS fantasy to me. But maiden it he did, and it went straight out of Jason Lilly’s hand and climbed out nicely. Sean spent 5 or 10 minutes just feeling it out on the front before diving in over the back. If he was nervous he didn’t show it, and the Deepend certainly never looked the slightest bit nervous. The speeds climbed as it locked in, and it made a unique whine! I can’t think how to describe it, but it’s a different “jet” noise to any other plane. I think everyone on the hill was either crowded behind the rocks or holding a gun. I counted 4 guns trained on it, all in different spots. There are big boulders on the steep slope below the cars and you can run from one rock to the next and shelter behind it to get a good line. The Deepend hit 251 and got pretty much a standing ovation.

Sean and Astan both got their Needles over 230. Astan’s fluttered at 230, so both of them taped their rudders. Asto was worried because his build wasn’t as solid as Sean’s, but both performed excellently. Everyone is impressed with the Needles.

The amazing thing about both days was that there was no carnage! There were some near misses, however. Weldon does have unexpected rotors and bad air at times. Usually it’s just a lazy roll-in when you’re really deep under the shear and close to the ground. But there are sudden death roll-ins. I had it happen spectacularly with the SC3 and nearly totalled it correcting. Just skimmed the grass. Also with the Opus, but the heavier DS planes cut through it all more nicely. It’s rare to see a D60 or D80 getting a violent roll. Asto had some wild Ninja saves with the Wedgie. The rates were probably a bit high on that first big 193mph flight but he tamed it well.

I am loving the Opus. It’s a bit of a baby to fly when there’s enough wind. A huge difference when you switch from a light responsive plane like the SC3 and go to the Opus. It feels like a limo. It’s not the outright fastest plane but it’s a good DSer, and tough. But the US guys pick up my Opus and say to me “Oh, this is a light one!!!” The weights of some of these planes have to be felt to be believed (including the Deepend!). I still haven’t worked out a system for converting their ounces to our kg. They all describe their planes’ weights in ounces.

The action on the hill goes on all the time, and operates flawlessly. There’s absolutely no organization or system, but everyone gets a go. I guess one thing is that when it’s fast, most guys only give it 5 or 10 minutes of really hard DS then they’ve had enough and when they punch out the say “OK, I’m out” and the next guy who’s on the front dives in. On Sunday arvo when the wind had got lighter there was a foamie furball for a while, and also at times a couple of guys would have their moldie DS planes ripping around on opposite sides of the same circuit. Scary stuff. John Buxton was also very keen to play with his Pike Giant - a bright orange 3 meter F3J layup. At first the circles were rough as the air wasn’t smooth, but later in the arvo he had it ripping nice acro patterns and tight DS circles. Patrick also had a go ... John told him there was a “speed limit” of 120mph, but still I was sure it was gonna go bang. It didn’t.

To be continued ... it’s insanely late and I have to go to bed.

Apr 05, 2011

I’ve opened the door to brilliant sunshine in the town of Mojave in California City (confusing I know). Feeling fairly rat@rsed from not enough sleep. Got up early to get my phone charger out of the car and there were beautiful pink clouds over the aircraft (it's next to a small airport) and the city lights on the desert to the east. The immense pressure of needing to get timely reports out to our eager fan club meant that I stayed up till 1am posting. (that’s tongue-in-cheek by the way; I love doing it). But I got more sleep than Astan - he was on his laptop till 3am for some reason. Took him ages to get the wireless to connect. He hasn’t watched “The IT Crowd” enough .... “Have you turned it off and back on again??”. haha.

Sean hasn’t emerged yet.

It’s been exactly a week since I arrived. Wow. Last Tuesday at this time I was in Spencer’s workshop wandering round like a stunned mullet and trying to make sense. It’s been a fabulous week.

*********** Short interlude, I walked over to the Primo Burger place on the other side of the highway (look left before you step out! Not right!) and got a capuccino and couldn’t resist a burger too. Talked to a couple of guys about the differences between sheriffs (on contract with the county, usually chasing druggies) and police (state employees) but both can write tickets. Can’t get used to opening my wallet to pay for things as the money here doesn’t make sense. All the notes are the same colour, so you have to look really hard to see the numbers. They don’t have coins for $1 & $2 - just notes for $1 and they don’t seem to hand out $50‘s - ATM’s dispense $20‘s, so you have this fat wad of notes all the time. Their 10c coins are smaller than their 5c ones! Which seems weird but I guess our $2 is smaller than $1 so there you go. But I really have to grind the brain gears to get the right change.

When I left off previously we were leaving the lovely Sequoia Lodge. We were feeling like a day off but with all the excitement about big wind at Parker we did a backflip and headed off on DS safari again, but not without a tinge of regret that it would have been nice to drive up into the Sequoia forests and the snow. First I borrowed the drill at the Lodge to drill out the wing bolt holes in the SC3 that I’d epoxied as they were pulling through. Inevitably we explained what we were doing over here, flying gliders and as often happens, he says “well, you’ll be wanting the wind to drop then!”. I put him straight. We stopped at the Big Blue Bear Cafe in Kernville for coffees - a jar on the counter with a sign “Show me your Tippys”. It was a bar as well and looked like it might be a wild place some nights. Almost every shop is themed somehow - hunting, fishing, bears and so on.

Just before we pulled up for fuel in Lake Isabella, Asto was pulled over by a cop for talking on his phone. We started to get a bit worried but he got off with a mild warning, a smile and a set of directions. They do seem to love Aussies over here. (Ahhsseeezz). We use our phones heaps. I have a T-mobile plan that for $60 a month gives unlimited national and international calls and texts, although I had to add a small amount of credit to allow calls to mobiles back in Oz. It’s incredible to be able to communicate so freely. I was able to phone Ezza so he could listen live to the first Deepend DS. My wife could text me and I phone back to walk her through doing something to the pool filter while she did it, and other things. But it’s a double edges sword in some ways ... I guess I am selfishly enjoying being cut from the usual family and work responsibilities, which is making me temporarily into a cheerful and relaxed person over here in the US. But the other night I had to talk to Janet about a couple of upsetting issues at home and I soon felt myself getting wound up with the old anxieties and stuff.

Look will you guys stop interrupting me and asking questions about trivial stuff like phones??!!! I’m never gonna tell this story!!

Well, there’s not much to tell about yesterday anyway. We spent about 2 1/2 hours driving, stopping for a Primo Burger (yes, the same place just over the road) and up to Parker. Asto was really skilled in getting his Honda front WD 2WD up the long rough track to the top, saving a lot of repacking gear.

Earlier in the morning when Ian and Nick, Thomas, Patrick and Jochen were there it was around 40mph, but the air wasn’t great over the back. By the time we got there (1pm) it was lighter and still not working. They said it’s the first time they’ve seen it that way. Patrick however had earlier got 252 with his new Kinetic - very brave, not bad! But Jochen’s D80 got flipped on the back, rammed in at enormous speed, and sunk a foot into the ground. The fuse is badly damaged but the wing is fine. Parker has a really sharp shear and you get warned it can break planes faster than Weldon. The big thing that limits Parker for high speed DS is that the backside is a smaller bowl.

So we basically hung around flying frontside and dipping in to test the DS air, which never got good. The wind was a bit too east. There was another guy there called Josh who lives in “The Valley” (San Fernando Valley) who’s not on RC Groups yet but reads it - he was great company. I played with the SC3 and Sean with the Erwin. Jochen flew his D60 and it got the best out of the air. Asto flew foam (Reaper) for a bit and hated it, and finally HAD to try the Needle even though the wind was dropping. It didn’t go up and he scratched around for a few minutes, cursing and cajoling the Needle until we convinced him to head out further to a thermal and he got up ... still on the dive-in he only cleared the cars by a few feet, and slow! But he did gradually wind it up, perhaps to 75mph, and had fun for 10mins then it ran out of puff and he JUST got over the ridge back to the front!

Parker Bob came up later too, which was fun. He went in a 24 hour road race on the weekend - it’s like what they call “bucket racing”. They did well till they broke the timing belt on the old Volvo at 23 1/2 hours. Still finished 5th. He got his Carbon Bird zipping around really snappy, despite the conditions.

As you can tell we had lots of time to fiddle and talk for hours on this iconic mountain, in beautiful mild sunshine with expansive mountain views. So, when I said we’d been skunked, San said “but it’s not a bad way to get skunked!” He’s right. It’s all good. Despite the long drive I’m sorta glad we followed the other guys around. They’re great to be with. Just being around Ian and Nick, you’re always learning something new. We had time to make jokes about language and accents with the Yanks and the Swiss/ Germans. I ascertained that the longest single German word is:
donaudampfschiffartskapitanskajutenschlussel
which means (in literal order): river steam ship sailing captain’s cabin key.

On the way back we went to a huge shopping area in Lancaster. Lancaster and Palmdale are 2 cities in the desert that are one blob, like Albury Wodonga, only with no river in between. We have GPS’s in both cars and are using them extensively. I can’t believe the technology. Anyway, we had to sort out Sean’s phone. Won’t go into the story but after many calls to Telstra, visits to AT&T and TMobile shops, and hours on the internet last night synching it with Itunes, he now has a functional phone with the same unlimited plan as me. We spent quite a while in the mall

Hey, interesting point ... the other night Sean looked at the Fastest 10 pilots on RCSpeeds.com and realised that on Sunday we had 8 of the 10 on the hill with us!
When Asto and I went looking for folding stools in Sears yesterday arvo, we asked someone for help and by pure coincidence it was an absolutely gorgeous shapely girl with a lovely smile. Although it’s a long way from home and a long way from the wife, and although I'm sure this girl would have run off with me like a shot, I quickly decided that I'd prefer to stick with my lovely incredible wife anyday. Asto however made up all sorts of excuses to go back in there - saying he wanted to look at Levi jeans and stuff. Cheesh. No hormonal control, that boy.

We had dinner in the mall and then drove north, finally using the GPS to help us find a motel. We wanted to find one away from the highway but couldn’t so turned into the closest, which turned out to be REALLY CHEAP! And not too bad, either. So here we are. No plans for today except to head up to Lake Isabella and find a house or cabin to squat in for the next few nights. It’s supposed to be good tomorrow (Wed) and probably huge on Thursday. Spencer, Daboz and Billy are coming up on Thurs and apparently there’s a well known ocean scientist coming up to see DS for himself. He’s Phil Richardson from (I think) the Atlanta Oceanographic Centre who’s been on the TV a bit, and done a paper on the dynamic soaring of Albatross. He may be bringing a couple of others too.

A couple of other minor random points: yesterday morning it was blowing 30mph from the East (desert side) at Parker; and an hour and a half south at Fermin it was blowing 30 - 40 mph from the West! (ocean side). Amazing.

Another thing is: we don’t have any chargers that plug into the wall so it was great to find that one of the cigarette lighter plugs in the Cherokee works when the key is off! We can leave stuff charging in the car when it’s locked, which is very useful.

Hoping I’ve completely overwhelmed and bored you with all this, so you stop asking me to post more!

Apr 05, 2011

Sorry about the various mistakes guys. Yes Sean says he must have got confused somehow with the no. of fastest men. The number doesn’t matter .... the essence of it is to say that we’re lapping it up in the company of excellence, and on the all-round best DS site in the world.

Although in our eyes these guys are way up there, none of them are pretentious about their DS achievements. Now I preface this by saying that I’m not sucking up to anyone, or trying to curry favours in any way. I feel that it’s true to say that the DS culture is one of goodwill, intelligent thinking and discussion, assistance freely given, humility mixed with determination, guts and confidence and general good cheer. All of the local DS guys we’ve met have really been extremely generous to us visitors. We were just talking tonight about how Ian Frechette is one of the most amazing pilots with a great depth of technical knowledge as well as skill on the sticks. Sometimes guys like that can be really task oriented, but on the contrary Ian has never shied away from lending help of every kind. This week I’ve seen him helping fix planes, sort out setup issues, and stand beside guys for ages giving them landing instructions or helping them fly and trim a new plane for the first time. Yesterday he sat with Astan for ages working through the frustrations of understanding someone else’s radio, until he was able to get Astan’s Needle mixes just right. Matter of fact, I haven’t really seen him flying a terrible lot ... he’s usually helping somehow even if it’s gunning to help someone like me record a new PB. I’ve been saved several times by some quick advice from Ian. Like the first time I flew the Opus at Weldon, for the first time I taped the top join of the flaps to reduce flutter (it’s second hand, and not the best build, and has one quite sloppy flap). When I was ready to land I pulled crow and the plane dived and banked. Only one flap was working. I slid the stick up and down about 10 times and called out “well, it’s either burnt out a servo or it’s not breaking free of the tape”. Ian ran across and said OK, it should be OK, you should be able to land without the flaps ... here, I’ll give you some tips. Then as an afterthought he said “sometimes you have to pull the flaps really slow and it will peel away from the tape”. I tried that and bingo! I had 2 flaps. He’s really good value to have around.

Nick is just the same. They’re a great pair. Nick is happy to spend hours down next to a rock gunning for anybody, and when he’s up the top he’s always grinning like a Cheshire cat and chipping in to help newbies with advice on planes and flying, or assisting someone with getting a plane put together and into the air. He is an incredible acro pilot but he seems to do it all without taking it too seriously. A good lesson for us all.

John Buxton is unconditionally generous with everything he has. He is happy for all takers to bunk down at his place, and if you don’t watch out he’ll give you anything you might need and refuse to take a cent for it. His house is a hive of activity with people from around the world using his tools, house and anything else ... whether he’s at home or at work. I’m worried that he thinks we Aussies are ungracious because we’ve been staying in hotels etc to try to get more rest and avoid the drive to Bakersfield and back. Ha! Seems like we’re a bit hypocritical when we basically blew a day going to Parker and back yesterday! John is always trying to help, even if it’s phoning us to let us know what some other guys are doing or where the wind’s blowing.

I’ve already waxed lyrical in my first posts about the huge help Chris Bosley was for the first 3 days of my trip. He was like my personal chauffeur and DS Safari guide, and great company. I’ve missed having him around while he’s been working etc, but his help hasn’t stopped ... he’s on tap 24/7 for advice and help, even if it’s searching for accommodation places on the net when we’re on the road, checking wind forecasts, giving directions and so on. Looking forward very much to catching up with him and Billy again on Thursday.

Unfortunately Spencer can’t make it on Thursday - he has a family member very ill and needs to go there, which is right. But he’ll be missed. I value his company and his advice and experience very much. He gives a small fry guy like me a lot of time, even ringing with tips on the weather and where to go. Like Chris and John, the phone call always ends with “now if there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, you just call up and let us know”. All the other guys are similarly supportive and friendly. We are very blessed with guys like these around and again, I want to make it clear that I’m not sucking up, but I do feel very proud to be part of the DS fraternity.

OK, so what did we do today? .... well, not much, but enough to be proud of! From my last post this morning at Mojave, we rested up a bit (all feeling pretty rough), did a bit of shopping, got off to a late start - nearly midday - and drove north through the Red Rock Canyon and left through Walkers Pass, then wound down through the craggy rocky ridges and spurs (which look like a giant quarry with granite boulders ready to roll down the impossibly steep hills) to the Kelso Valley and again past the familiar Weldon hill, then onto Lake Isabella town and turned north. We had arranged a couple of places to check out for accommodation for the next few nights - looking forward to staying in one place for a while, since the weather will be good for Weldon till at least Thursday night. The first place we checked out in Wofford Heights was a bit more than we wanted to pay, and it was WAY overkill for a trio of DS junkies like us! Really huge and very fancy! So we kept driving up to a house at Kernville which was much less - $175 a night and it has 3 queen beds and one single. It looked good, but the big issues were: did it have cellphone reception and internet?YES!! We booked it instantly.

We barely had time to take photos of us lounging in our new abode when Spencer rang and told us about how Mars was his pick for Thursday. I heard what he was saying, but the thought of turning turtle tomorrow and driving 3 1/2 hours or so gave me a headache! We’re not sure what will happen exactly. I will be staying here, but Sean may decide to go for Mars, depending on how the forecast pans out.

This indecision cast a bit of a pall over our celebrations, as we chewed it over from different angles. I spoke to Chris too, who gave some valuable balancing input about the risks of flying at Mars. I was busting for a good coffee so finally we walked down to the shops below. This place is sort of a cross between a country town and Queenstown in NZ - most of the shops are themed and most are outlets for adventure gear, fishing tours, canoe tours, white water rafting, mountain bike hire or tours, etc, etc. (or they are restaurants). Sean is very keen to get some lead shot to epoxy into his Deepend fuselage and we scoured the shops for some, unsuccessfully.

Then John Buxton phoned and said that Patrick had just got the 346mph with the K100, and was wondering why we weren’t up there. We told him we needed rest ... he again invited us to use his place, and we broke the bad news to him that we’ve rented this place. We walked home and Astan and Sean started to think we could go up to the hill, even though it was already 4:30. Then we all agreed this was a stupid idea. We seemed to be in a blue funk and finally I said “oh, bugger it, let’s go for a fly! That’s what we’re here for!” We all leapt into action and in 5 minutes or so, we were on the road.

It took about 35 mins to get right to the top of the hill. Wind was probably 22 -25mph? A guess. Ian, Nick, Patrick, Thomas and Jochen were just packing up, but they said it was still excellent. We heard that they’d had some carnage earlier. The D80 was repaired from yesterday’s crash at Parker, but it flicked really hard on the landing approach and broke the fuse badly again. They also had a big smash with a K60 that got rolled in on the bottom turn. Astan was the quickest to get a plane together, while I admired Ian’s Wizard Compact DSX. Now that’s a plane I really want to have.

I started to put together the SC3 and went to get the ballast, but couldn’t find the toolbox. Oh no! I realized I’d gone to put it into the car ... maybe I left it outside the house! Ah, crap! I was really worried that it could get stolen. Tried to contact the rental lady but no luck. This was not good. The toolbox has heaps of stuff we need and would be hard to replace ... plus various ballast, bolts and joiners of Sean’s and mine. I knew I had to get back for it.

Meanwhile judging by the screaming, Astan was getting the Needle wound up. Nick was already down at Radar Rock, and I got out Spencer’s gun too. Wow, neat circles and lots of power! 197... 202! then lots of 208, 210, and out the front to carve some acro and get the brain in gear. A couple of massively fast figure 8’s behind the ridge and Asto started to really settle into a series of very consistent loops, not too deep but powerful. The speeds climbed and as he heard me yelling 222... 228 ... 234 ... he dug deeper and harder. He ripped that Needle to 237mph, which we believe is the new airframe record by 1mph. Basically we packed up ASAP and headed back to find out whether the toolbox was still there. On the way we stopped for fuel and the place turned out to be a sporting goods shop too, and they had gunshot - but steel, not lead. Sean bought a bottle anyway.

The toolbox was still in the house. I must have put it down and got distracted. Bummer, but all’s well that ends well, and Astan’s record really made our Weldon dash worthwhile.

We walked down and had dinner at an Italian restaurant. This place is nice. We’re happy being here.

It’s 11:30 and I’m finishing this. Sean’s gone to bed, and Astan is epoxying some gunshot into the tips of his D40!

Aufwiedersehen!

Apr 06, 2011

We are up now. Asto is doing the other side of his wing ballast and I'm about to wander down for some coffee and a bite.

My theme last night was the generosity of the guys over here. The problem is I can't capture it all! I keep thinking of more nice stuff people have done. The Stalker gun (500+ capable) that Spencer loaned me without a blink. A charger from Chris. The Tomtom GPS from Spencer. The problem with starting to be specific is that you forget important stuff! There is a lot more. I also know that if we flew the same mode, these guys would be letting us fly their models all the time too.

Later ...

Well, Astan and Sean have decided to go to Mars. I'm not keen on the long drive ... I've never even been over 200 yet, and I don't have the plane to go near record speeds like they do, so I'm staying here. Chris and Billy will come up to fly this afternoon, stay here and take their beds tonight. I wish them well but I don't envy them the drive or the risks at Mars. If it was only an hour away I'd do it.

When we arrived yesterday we all pitched our washing into the big Maytag machine here, and turned it on. It filled up with water, and promptly died. So while we're waiting for them to fix it, our clothes are having a very long swim. Might have to buy some more socks and jocks!

Here are some pics:

Attached Thumbnails

Sunrise at the Motel 6 at Mojave. Wish I'd been able to get the fins of the jets lined up at the airstrip but it was cold and I was tired!

Settling into our new home.

Asto just after his commando flight which broke the airframe PB for the Needle.

Out the front this morning.

DS Ninja broadening his interests into photography outside our house.

From the road towards town.

Aaaah, the 2 lovebirds on the verandah ....

Apr 06, 2011

3 aussies and 3 new pb's today!

Sorry if this is rushed - pretty tired and need to get to bed. But it’s been a big day. This morning Sean and Astan resolved that they would head for Mars today. I would stay here and Billy and Daboz could overnight here in their place, which I was very much looking forward to.

I walked downtown for some GREAT coffee and a bun at the Big Blue Bear cafe, and stopped on the bridge to watch the alpine water churning past at great speed - it’s a big kayaking/ white water rafting area. We did some catching up, but didn’t waste too much time getting going. Sean and Astan were going to spend a few hours flying at Weldon first, then head off towards Mars.

We had some tension about which cars would go - they were going to take the Cherokee until I found that I wouldn’t be insured in Astan’s Honda, and refused to drive it. But we found a way to lay the Honda’s back seat down so they could fit all the gear in to be OK taking it, and I would keep the Cherokee. It’s in my name so I was sorta relieved. At the last minute was not iafter the washing machine had been unplugged all night I pulled the button and it started! So we headed off and I rang the lady to say there’s no need to fix it.

Arriving at Weldon it was not very strong wind - around 15 - 18mph. Ian, Nick, Patrick, Thomas and Jochen were already there - it was about 10am I think. We had fun cracking jokes at each other’s nationality quirks and copying each others’ accents, and I got up flying the SC3. It has this thing that whenever it gets over 110 or so, it becomes very squirrelly over the back. I experimented with lots of things - aileron differential, CG, ballast. One Bluebird 555 servo stripped a gear on landing so I got out the battery powered soldering iron I bought at Bunnings for $43 just before leaving, and tried it for the first time. It did a great job! Ian helped by doing the soldering actually.

Sean and Asto flew their Needles. They are extremely good. Sean unfortunately flicked his not far above the hill and it went in hard, but the only damage was a major crease/ crack in the nose just in front of the wing. The kevlar hadn’t torn and the break seemed to be only on the outside. He scraped it back and CA’ed it, and got Astan to hold tension on it.

There was plenty to talk about and to look at. Ian got his gyro’ed D60 up and showed us how well it tracked. Amazing. He just held that thing in the groove for ages. It has been sprayed with fluoro orange paint on the wing and fuse, and it was then sanded to make it dull! So it doesn’t reflect. Also it broke the tailboom yesterday so they fixed it beautifully but taking a piece of carbon cloth, lightly 77‘ing it around the boom, and dribbling thin CA all over it! You have to keep adding more CA to the dry areas and wiping it with a bit of plastic, then sanding it. I imagine it would burn the nostril hairs with CA fumes too ...

I’ve really forgotten the order of things. Early on it was mostly fun DS and acro stuff. I couldn’t wait for Ian to get his Wizard Compact DSX up again. The air was quite dodgy at times but the strength gradually crept up during the day. By 1pm or so it was definitely picking up so people started gunning. The speeds weren’t huge but the D80’s were getting up into the 250’s (this is with barely 20 knots of wind!). I got the Opus out earlyish and managed to get 198. Still not over 200! I was trembling with nerves. I don’t keep it up for too long as I worry that I’ll get brainfade and I’m terrified of planting it into the backside. Patrick got his new Kinetic 100 out and the difference was quite clear - it was so clean and he lapped so well and consistently, standing still as a statue as the K100 whined around. It was amazing how much rumbling of the shear was going on way down in the bottom turn! He quickly got it up to 305, the fastest speed seen today. Immediately after, while he was landing, I grabbed a wind gauge, held it on the front for a good while, and only got 20 - 28mph!

Astan got the D40 airborne to try out the added wing ballast. He spent some time with Ian on the front, cutting the rates back. Then he dived in and the little plane ripped around. But the air wasn’t without backdrafts etc, and he had a really wild ride. These little fast planes freak me out ... too twitchy for a slow old fart like me. He really pushed it relentlessly, finding it harder to track the perfect line, compared to a heavier plane. It was such a gutsy effort and all the guns were trained on the D40. He had so many REALLY close calls, and soon people were diving for their video cameras to capture the frequent OOOOHHHWWAAAAAHHH’s as he just rolled clear of the hill or almost mowed the grass coming up at >150mph! It was really wild, and he kept it up despite the risks. The D40 cashed in 5 or 6 lives but finally fate caught up with it, and it just went in hard at exactly 178, after hitting a max of 187. Bits flew everywhere! I raced down to capture it on video as Astan got down there and started picking up bits. I looked up to the cars, called to Sean to bring down the still camera ... and walked straight into a cactus bush. MANNNNNNNN!!! OWWW!! I couldn’t move, I had these clumps of big, sticky spines stuck into my hand and thigh. They’re amazingly unpleasant, and they must have fine barbs on the tip because you barely have to touch yourself and they seem to almost suck themselves straight in! I had to limp up and use a pair of forceps to pull them out!

John Buxton and Marlan then turned up. Soon, Asto got “back on the horse” and got the D80 ripping around nicely. Before long he got 259mph, his PB. He kept trying and started getting some really frothy air down the back, and was struggling to keep up the speed. I was down at the radar rock and could feel the breeze coming strongly across the backside (leaking around) from the north. For the rest of the arvo the cross breeze at the rock, and the rough conditions were fairly well correlated. But the amazing thing when Asto was flying was the noise! I’m not exactly sure why, but where I was, behind the rock, the sound changed to more of a real thunder rumble, and it sounded like a jet was flying repeatedly through the saddle and across the backside. It had an amazing 3D surround sound echo. Also, the sound was separated from the plane, like it was following behind it. I don’t use this word lightly, but it was surreal. Ian and John make sure that a photo is taken of every PB so Astan grinned for the cameras again. He’s such a media tart.

Astan also took the Atomic Wedgie up to a new airframe record of 214. I missed seeing that.

Sean decided to have another go with the Deepend. This time he put the span ballast into the wings too. He was a bit disconcerted that when DSing he had to trim out some roll, and when he went back out on the front, it rolled the other way. He thinks it’s a balance issue. Anyway, he got really bumpy bad air. After a few minutes he called it quits and went out the front. However where I was gunning, the side wind died off and I yelled out, and Ian dragged Sean back to the DS rockwall. He dove in again and although it was not always good, he really worked it as hard as any man could and over a long while, got it up to 296. New PB for Sean. He kept trying for more ... he wanted 300 badly - but went in cycles mashing bad air staying high, then better air and dig deeper. He really started to get angry with it, and the Deepend ripped smaller circles, showing absolutely no flex at all. But the Big Dogs told him to open it up and go deeper. It got up to 265 again but no more.

I had another go with the Opus and cracked 200 ... so it was a photo with a gun saying 214. Not bad.

Sean drove his D60 super hard, but only got 230-something, substantially less than the 264 he got at Tallows Ridge (the lighthouse). That Byron site really does have a good shear ...

Chris and Billy turned up late-ish. Chris set up the Shockwave. Man, that’s a seriously good plane. Really heavy and stiff. Nick launched it for him but they must have fluked a rotor and it wafted down, cartwheeled in the weeds and hit a v-tail control surface, bending the horn arm and damaging the servo. A shame - I wanted to see that!

I put the Opus together again and this time was quicker to get some good speed. I clocked 230 so that’s now my PB. I actually think I got better than 230... I had some ripper laps before they started gunning.

Ian finally put the Wizard Compact DSX into the air, absolutely fully ballasted and oh, boy, it truly is impressive. The circles were perfect, the noise awesome, and the speed high! He got 297mph!!! That’s K100/ Deepend territory!!! The wings clearly flex at the bottom turn but he says the plane is just rock solid. I love that plane. I kept asking him to sell it to me but he refuses!

Rushing to finish ... there was heaps, heaps more interesting stuff. The guys said that this is pretty much an “ordinary” day at Weldon during the season. Tomorrow is supposed to be stronger. We got a message from Spencer saying that changes to the forecast meant that, in his opinion, it was gonna be booming at Weldon tomorrow, and a better direction, and maybe not so good for Mars. So Sean and Astan decided to stay here.

After most of the others had left, Chris did a bit of acro demo with his Nyx Atomic, and did the most glorious hand catch, hovering it from high down into his hands. Sean flew his patched up Needle, and put on a spectacular rip and tear display.

At the end Chris got out his Rebel foamie wing which has nice bright lights. It was dark, and it was cold! The Rebel was really fun . Astan and I each had a fly and I started to get the hang of the one-stick Mode 2 system. Lots of fun. Sean has a cold and felt crook, and hid in the car to stay warm!

We headed off with the Cherokee, the Honda and Billy’s big SUV to get dinner at the “Brewery” just across from our house. But it was closing. They said go to the Pizza place, but it was closed too! At last count Billy and Chris were heading back to Isabella. I had some leftover corn chips and musli bars for dinner.

The washing machine must have stopped again as we were driving away this morning! The clothes were all still in a bath of soapy water! So we’re rinsing out some essentials and sticking them in the dryer!

First PB for me today

Asto with a pile of D40 bits. Gutsy effort.

Broken 200! 131.4 KB · Views: 91

Asto's new PB, done with his D80.

Chris (Daboz) with the spectacular Shockwave. Didn't get to see it fly today.

Sean beaming after getting a PB of 296 with the home made Deepend.

Heading in the right direction ... my 3rd PB jump, to 230.

Astan flying the Rebel with lights in the dark, using Chris's radio on Mode 2 (one stick on the right).

Isn't she gorgeous? I'm in lust!

I thought these guys only flew polished planes. Ian's WIZ DSX has tape marks all over it! He got some brake fluid out of the bonnet to wipe it clean!

Apr 07, 2011

Its frickin windy up here and cold! Asto has just lifted his pb to 285. Sean just worked the deepend hard but couldnt get over 280or so. Gonna see some big speeds today i think but its a bit rough just now

We're back to our house in daylight! We all pulled the pin on Weldon when our hands were aching from the cold when flying plus it started to rain. We all went down to a Mexican restaurant and when we came out there was light snow on the mountains close by!

Sean and I have a question - I started to leave a voicemail for Bananaman about this as he probably knows, and the messagebank cut out. Anyway, thought I'd just post it here and see if any of you Aussies can answer me.

Sean and I would like to fly in an F3F race at Fermin on the 16th. We have spoken to various people in the club over here about it and they're not sure whether our MAAA licenses will be OK to allow us to fly here. Does anyone know?

Worst case we can join the club over here for about $50 but we'd rather not waste the money if there's no need.

Another issue is that Sean forgot to bring his license card but I think we could get something faxed or emailed out.

This morning here at Kernville (which is in a valley) it was pretty calm and since I hadn't had a phone call, I assumed the other guys weren't flying yet. At 8am Sean and Astan were only just awake so I walked down over the river to the shops for coffee. When I got back Sean and Asto were standing looking sheepish with hands in pockets, shifting from foot to foot and all packed up. The reason was that they’d got a message saying Bruce Tebo’s K130 had just gone 348! It was a quick packup and we were off to the hill again. “So, you got here before dinner!” was the welcoming comment from Ian ... just the sort of thing you’d expect from the Collaradoean or whatever he is ... they seem to have an Aussie style sense of sarcasm out there! He and Nick had indeed skipped their plane flight to hang around for another day.

The wind had been smoother early in the morning, and we missed it. Dang! Patrick also got 338 with his K100. Astan saw the Kyosho badges on Bruce’s jacket and got talking to him and realized that Bruce is the father of Jarred Tebo, a world champ level RC car racer. Astan has done a huge amount of RC cars and was really tickled by this - Jarred is apparently a legend.

One day in Chris's car we spoke to 3 different guys including the CD, also Kyle Paulsen (who's currently on his way to Europe for an F3F event) and Mark Canfield and none of them could give a definite answer!

Here are just a few pics of today. I have lots of great video. Hard to keep up with videos and stills at the same time! Next time I'll have to bring an assistant journalist who can work on the video each night!

Attached Thumbnails

Sean got 249 with the D60 - not his PB but nice. 111.5 KB · Views: 44

Putting the Deepend together. Flew nicely but the wind didn't give as much speed as yesterday. 195.6 KB · Views: 67

ASTO'S NEW PB OF 285!!! Very impressive. Here shown with his DS tutor, Ian. 123.4 KB · Views: 67

Starting to rain, Chris having a short cold session with his heavy D80! 102.1 KB · Views: 43

Marlan helping Sean disassemble the Deepend. 145.5 KB · Views: 63

Asto sorting out computer problems back at home in Oz (a case of the blind leading the blind?) 136.7 KB · Views: 47

Sean packing wings into the Cherokee 115.9 KB · Views: 68

At the Mexican restaurant. A moment before this I sat down and said to the guys "get your head in view" but forgot to switch off the hand gesticulation mode and knocked my entire mug of coffee over the table and floor. 156.3 KB · Views: 106

Sean grimacing in the cold on the back deck here with snow landing on his jumper! 115.9 KB · Views: 46

It was much colder up there today, and we quickly had jumpers and wind jackets on. I also had windproof pants over my ...

Brief interruption here in my writing... it has started snowing outside our house!!! Photos and video and race back in - too cold!

Back to the hill; there were quite a few cars there, and the flyers were John Buxton, Marlan, us 3 Aussies, Nick and Ian, Chris and Billy, the Swiss/ Germans Patrick, Jochen and Thomas, Bob Kelly, Bruce Tebo ... hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.

We got some good flying in. The big win for us was that Astan got really locked in with his D80 and clocked 285mph. He flew for a long time, and spent plenty of time in the 200 - 220 region, but then worked it up several times to 250 and then broke yesterday’s PB of 259, jumped to 266, You know the pilot is getting into the zone when the speeds go 271, 272, 273 but then it was a sudden jump to 285, captured on 2 guns at the same time. It really was good flying.

The guns are so accurate. If we’re standing side by side the speeds are usually exactly the same. Usually there’s a guy holding a gun beside the flyer at the rock wall, plus at least another one further along behind the cars, still on top of the ridge, and one or 2 behind the rocks below. At one stage the guys were flying a bit high to avoid bad shear below and I stood in the tray of a big ute (“Pickup”) to get a different line and it was always higher. But mostly, if the pilot is following the classic good line, the best spot to gun is the rocks below. It was interesting hearing the speeds being called from 2, or even 3 or 4 spots at the same time and one time I had Sean laughing while he DSed the Deepend when, to relieve the monotony of Sean’s perfect laps (253, 252, 253, 252, 254 ...) I accused the other guys of lying - the speed was 255, not 254! Everyone cracked up. OK, I guess you had to be there.

But it got soooo COOOLD! standing up in that ute in the wind. I gave up. It got colder. Dark clouds were hanging over the hills to the north and someone said “it’s snowing up there”. Wow. When even those Colorado guys say it’s cold ... it really IS cold! It was so cold that it wouldn’t have been feasible to fly frontside for fun. Just launching, test flying a holding pattern and shuffling back to the DS spot your hands started to hurt. When you went to land, it was darn windy and cold, and the second time I felt a mild panic working the plane into approach with the hands aching and the eyes watering. It was great to get back behind the cars. I don’t know how the hell those guys in England, or even the Southern Aussies at times cope with flying in the cold.

As soon as I gunned a K100 (Patrick) I had missed reads on the gun. Those things have such a thin profile it’s harder to catch them. I sticky taped a drinking straw on the topline of the gun, and straight away got better reads.

I only had 2 flies. The first time I jumped up and down to try to limber up and Nick said “holy sheeyit, it’s a kangaroo up here!”. When I got the Opus over the back it got totally spat down about the 5th lap at 170 or so, went inverted and was a lucky save, and it really scared me. I just don’t want to write any planes off! I was shaken and kept staying too high, which was not good for speed. Ian, Chris and Asto came over to give me some “lower your rates” counselling so Asto flew for a bit while I pressed buttons. Those guys could see instantly that my elevator rate was too high, but I can’t tell at all. I dived in and settled in - it did fly better and I held the line right, but still had problems which felt like hitting whitewater, and soon gave up. I felt a bit bad and wondered if behind my back they were saying, “here goes Andrew to do some Opussying around!” Haha! But I was kinda relieved when Chris, flying straight after me with a heavy D80, had problems being “mushed” too.

Later on I had another flight and did OK. By this stage the low cloud was coming over and the air was smoother, but not as much power. It suited my lighter Opus well, and I must admit I hoped I’d break 250. But despite really nailing the laps for a good while I only got 222 (I think that’s right). But it felt good! I enjoyed it a lot.

One landing was great, and the second one I came fast up to the top of the ridge, perfect approach, and tried to point the nose into the wind to hover it but it rolled a bit and did a spectacular flat spin in the weeds. No damage fortunately! Opi are tough.

There’s so much happening that I get confused about what happened today and what was yesterday! If I don’t scribble it on my high tech recording system (piece of folded paper in shirt pocket) I just clean forget it all.

As always, there was lots more. I hope I am conveying something of the feel of actually being there, and I feel so privileged to be seeing it all. Just feeling the weight of some of those planes ... it feels impossible that they could fly. The look of Bruce’s K130 sitting across the pickup tray - enormous, perfect looking, impossibly heavy and an eye popping fluoro orange colour.

Ian did the Wizard Compact thing again. It’s a super display. I missed it but Sean and Asto just told me how good it was. The wings bend visibly but it was totally locked into the circuit. An exceptional pilot. He got 325!!

Bruce Tebo’s flying is something to see. Twice while we were there he got in the zone with his heavy D60 and yes, he got a sizzling 284mph, but the amazing thing was the perfectly controlled acro. He uses the entire backside of the ridge, carving parallel to the ground in smooth arcs, while rolling gently out of the back turn and completing the roll smoothly at constant height over the cars. ... plus other stuff. A bit scary as it bring the action rather close to the spectators, but enthralling. The wind wasn’t huge - just an “average” day where you can cruise at 200mph most of the time.

There was no carnage again today! Sean put some cracks into his D60’s fin/boom seam with a hard landing and is repairing it as I write. But no major smashes!

John Buxton GAVE Astan a D40! John had a hard day today with planes not going well, and he was obviously frustrated that he couldn’t tame this D40. Next thing Asto came back looking rather humbled and said John had given it to him! I tried to thank John later and he said “no, it’s a punishment for Astan! I hate that plane!”. Not bad to trash a D40 one day and be given another one the next day! He’s working on it right now.

It got pretty miserable and started raining lightly, and finally around 2:30pm everyone had had enough. The convoy bumped its way down the hill and drove to a Mexican restaurant for a great meal and a great session of DS stories. Patrick was really animated and at times his face seemed to be almost exploding trying to find the English words to get the story out!! It was great. He told the best story, about the time they DSed a K100 on an incredible snowcapped ridge above a ski run. The wind was only 20kts or so, which he knew was marginal but he tried anyway, and first dive-in lap he felt total loss of aileron authority, probably from a huge tailwind gust on the backside. The K100 tracked straight into the backside but when they got to it, nothing could be seen. They dug 30cm of snow before finding the elevators. They had to dig 2 metres of snow out to retrieve the whole plane! Nothing was damaged and he was flying again 20 minutes later!

Another good story of Billy’s was the time someone was flying a heavy D80 at Weldon, punched out into the sun and completely lost sight of the plane. He pulled full up, because putting the plane into a series of loops is the best chance of seeing it flash somewhere and hopefully keeping it in the sky for a while. But no luck. Time went by and people went searching for a glimpse. No luck, give up, but walking back Chris Bosley saw a speck of yellow way down at the very bottom of the backside, near the road. They drove down and found the D80 sitting flat on a small bush, totally undamaged. It was back in the air 20 minutes later!

When we came out of the restaurant, someone pointed out that there was light snow on the surrounding hilltops! Amazing. It was still raining a bit, but there was a prolonged goodbye session as we won’t see Ian and Nick again this trip. We’ll really miss those nutcase guys and wish to formally thank them for their help and encouragement.

Until next time, and thanks for the info on the licenses - we will ring the AMA I think.

Whole crew on Sunday 196.2 KB · Views: 129

Apr 08, 2011

It's snowing here in Kernville! It's only light, but it's not something I see every day. Just been outside snapping time delay pics of myself. The other guys are still asleep. We stayed up again last night replaying video. So much fun.

We're gonna get back on the road today. I'm sure we'll find ourselves down your way next week as Sean has family down that way to visit. Plus you have some amazing slopes we need to check out.

I have to apologize for brain fade at not remembering PalmdaleFlyer's first name - I think I have met him? Sorry. Thanks for the tip about Vincent. We'd like to go there. It's forecasting about 15mph SW for Acton today - is that the right direction for Vincent? How about GM? I know Chris said GM doesn't work when there's a storm around but here it is lifting to a brilliant blue sky.

We might go for a drive up to the trees this morning, if the road's open. Then head south.

Apr 09, 2011

Just like home ... and a drama on the hill

This morning I wished I could have slept in. But I woke early, as is my wont, and saw the snow on the verandah outside. Wow! I took time delay photos of myself as I know my kids will be excited to see it. Soon more light snow fell too. The entire mountainsides around us had a light grey colour with solid caps on some tops. There was snow on rooves and clumped lightly on branches. Fantastic. Again, pinching myself that I’m here and perhaps getting a touch of homesickness wishing that Lisa and Julia, my youngest 2 girls, were here as they’d be going nuts about it.

Around 8am I was dressed and ready to walk down to the Big Blue Bear cafe for the best coffee in the world. After stomping in and out noisily (wooden floor) about 7 times while Astan and Sean were still trying to sleep (dang, forgot my glasses. Dang, forgot my wallet. Dang, better take a key. Oh it’s cold, I’ll need my thick gloves ...) I headed off and soon had much more empathy for those Antarctic explorers who write about frostbite of the nose. It ached! There was more water in the river again but with the cold I wasn’t gonna stop to look for long, and the coffee at the cafe was great. Like everything in this town the place has a lovely rustic character with lots of different stuff to look at. The girls who serve, both serious dancers, are cheerful and always remember exactly what coffee ... “I know, the 2 shot Cap with the half milk in the small cup, I know”. Quite a few locals seem to hang out there and there are usually one or 2 people doing some sort of work on laptops. I really enjoyed sitting there listening to the conversations, just soaking in the accents and culture, which still feel very different despite the Americanization of our own Aussieness through TV and internet exposure. I had to laugh at the humour between a bunch of men, probably retired, clustered around one of the tall tables. “Your bandaid isn’t on real good” said one old guy looking at the chap on the other side of the table, who retorted without missing a beat: “Well don’t look at it then.” Sounds better with the local accent.

We packed everything up to leave our lovely house. While the guys had breakfast I went to a sort of national park shop over the road to look for interesting souvenirs and walked out with a detailed map of the area. I think I’ll laminate it and put it on my office wall, with Weldon hill circled and “230mph 6th April 2011” written under it. I need to make that figure bigger.

We drove up Sierra way following the river for ages, and climbed gradually higher and began to see beautiful things involving snow everywhere. Mounds of snow on a row of letterboxes, blanketting thick branches overhanging the road, or next to a waterfall. It felt like Christmas! That’s weird. We stopped to take photos here and there and my two childish travel companions made rude shapes with snow and started throwing it at me while I was photographing them.

When we got to the end of the open road there was quite a thick blanket of snow in the bush. Wow! The road was closed to the “100 Giants” which is where you can walk on a track amongst the biggest trees in the world, the giant Sequoias. But we drove around the sign to see how far we could get. Not far ... the road was totally blocked by a fallen tree, which looked beautiful with snow on it. More photos and video. Unlike the lower areas, up here there were trees, but compared to our country it was really sparse tree cover and Sean noted the large amount of fallen timber on the ground. Anyway, that pretty much wraps up our trip into the mountains. We had to drive back the same way, still admiring the beauty of the fast flowing river and the towering rocky hills, and saw some kayakers getting lessons in the rapids.

A stop for coffee again at the cafe, then on to Isabella. John B called up to say that he and the Euro guys were contemplating going to Weldon. There seemed to be a lot of wind but it was hard to know whether the direction was good, and the internet reports didn’t make any sense at all. So after getting a snack we drove again to Weldon and ascended the hill. There was heaps of wind, and on the frontside the wind seemed to be coming directly from the lake. Asto quickly launched his “new” D40, the one John had given him in total frustration, and it climbed nicely. Then a shout and it plummeted at great speed out of sight down the front. He says it tip stalled and wouldn’t recover. I was sure it would be a goner, but he brought it up undamaged! It had speared a long way into soft dirt. I launched the Opus. It was so cold that I had several jumpers, windcheater and a thick scarf around my neck. The Opus didn’t go up and I trimmed a bit more up, but it started to look dodgy. But with a bit of patience I soon had height and dived in to find that it didn’t work at all. Just mush. I wanted to try a different line so cruised for height again but the lift had gone and the wind was well off angle - too much from the north! I barely had horizon and cruised from the left back to the lip hoping to get headwind and lift on the lip, and got neither ... my flypast turned suddenly into an emergency landing as the Opus just sank towards the ground with plenty of airspeed. My attempt to turn it into wind at the last moment just caused it to touch a wingtip first - worst thing to do - should have listened to Astan who was yelling “nose it in!” It did the helicopter maneuvre and speared a wing a foot into the soft dirt and nothing was damaged apart from my pride. This was the first of several episodes where I should have listened to Astan!

So we reported our findings to John B, packed up and headed east through Walkers Pass to the desert and south with the general aim of finding Vincent. I typed some of this report on the way (I love this Macbook), then started looking for Vincent on the TomTom, but with no luck. I had copied all the RCSpeeds directions which were great, but I didn’t know what town it was near! Busting for a leak, we pulled into an In & Out burger place for the loo and something to eat, and to use the internet so we could go to Chris’s RCSpeeds.com site and look at the map, but they had no internet!!! Aaargh. Anyway we managed to get enough info by asking locals and soon the GPS was telling us where to go ... with some overshoots and bad turns ... we had poor Astan swearing in fluent Aussie a couple of times as he tried to follow us in the Honda.

It’s a windy dirt drive up Vincent, but not rough. Near the top, amongst various turns, Chris called up so we were able to confirm we were on the right track. We pulled up beside the cellphone towers and parked Asto’s car. We couldn’t see a likely DS spot, but kept driving to the top of the “bad bit” and WOW, what a fantastic spot! A big grassy knoll, albeit with a few rocks, and a great looking bowl at the back. And there was plenty of wind, maybe 20 knots? But it was BRASS MONKEY cold!!!! FAAAAAaar out, this was painful!! The thermometer on the Cherokee’s dash said 42 degrees I think - around 7 degrees C. Holy moley. We had to move fast and get out of the wind!

The idea is that you have a look down the last steep hundred metres or so of track to decide if you can do it. We decided to be safe and walk. So with lots of loud complaining about the cold we piled on everything warm we could reach, and got the flying stuff. Sean quickly had the D60 together and Asto armed himself with his Needle (they now call them the “Noodles” all the time). I realized I’d left the Opus switch on at Weldon and checked it with my little tester - no lights!!! Aaaargh! I put it in the car on charge, and walked down with the backpack of tools, radar gun, SLR and video camera. Sean had already launched and was doing fairly lazy but smooth circles. The interesting thing was that he had pulled his headgear off and was standing comfortably, looking warm, with not enough wind to move his long hair! The top of the ridge is reasonably rounded, but you don’t have to move far back to find total calm. I pressed the red button on the gun and called “172” and Sean almost died of shock! “You’re kidding???” .... “No!” I said so he tried a bit harder and got 178! It didn’t look at all like that sort of speed. No turbulence, very little effort. We noticed the famous Joshua tree (a bit like a skinny pandanus) which sticks up right where the best low line would be, so I got Sean to lap close to it for photos.

Asto then launched his Noodle and really got it ripping. He was doing tighter circles than Sean and where I was photographing under the top turn, it hissed loudly. He later complained that it was rough, but he really nailed it with a top of 198mph! But he didn’t fly long - his hands were so cold he was having trouble feeling the sticks. Standing on the front lining up the landing approach only made it worse! He was in real pain and I gave him my thick gloves for a while.

I needed to get something from the car and check the Opus charge. It’s a pain going up and down to get stuff and I wished the car was down where we were flying. I asked the other guys whether they thought we’d get back up and Asto said “Nup”. I thought I knew better - most of us have been up much worse, and I reckoned with a good runup and some balls I’d do it easily. I walked back up the climb to the Cherokee, clearing a few rocks from the track and throwing them into holes, and thought it wasn’t all that bad. I would take the Cherokee down to the flying spot. I was reassured that Chris had said that if you couldn’t get back up, you could get out by an alternative route: descending a track to the houses below. I eased the heavy soft-AWD’er down the track but Oh-oh, I was disconcerted to feel the tyres slipping a lot, and I had to ease off the brakes at times to get some steering. I pulled up beside the guys and said “I think that was an error of judgement!”. But with the other escape option I wasn’t too worried.

I then flew the Opus. It felt to me like the wind was a bit weaker - the sun was setting. The boys exhorted me to stop doing such big, far away circles as I was gonna hit either the hillside or the power lines below. Asto grabbed me by the collar and dragged me further along the hill. Finally I got my act together and started holding a good line constantly around 160, with a max of 179. But just a couple of minutes on the front lining up the landing had my hands aching! I did a beaut landing approach and it floated just past me ... but I should have done some looking first - I was extremely lucky not to prang it into some big rocks in the grass. It freaks me out at times how we’re often a hair’s breadth from disaster with these planes.

While I was flying Sean took advantage of the car’s proximity, put his Needle together and followed up with some ripping eggbeater-style circles. Again, it didn’t look all that fast but he was gunned at 172 max in this tight pattern! The Needle really is an excellent plane, very strong wing and capable of full elevator turns at 200mph. Can’t ask for more than that.

********** Well... *******

We are here at a Starbucks at San Fernando (the TomTom lady guided us here - and I've finally had the opportunity to dump this text into the thread, but there's more! You'll have to wait till my next instalment to find out why the Cherokee spent the night alone, stuck on the Vincent hill ....

To be continued!!!

Continuing the story ... we decided to go as it was just starting to get dark-ish. Dismantled and packed and Asto walked up the bad hill, and further along to his car. Sean and I started to drive down, looking for the track to the bottom. I had a phone call from my wife and said goodbye as I jumped out to scout the way. Aaah, here’s the track down to that house. No worries, looked good. However to be safe, I got Sean to wait while I scouted the track. I jogged all the way to the bottom, making sure it was do-able, then turned and hoofed it back up to where I could just see Sean in the Cherokee’s windscreen over the brow of the hill. I was puffed so I waved madly for him to come down. Hmmm, mustn’t have seen me. Wave and jump about, then run a bit further up and gesticulate madly for him to proceed. No movement. Then my phone rang: it was Sean. “You’re not gonna believe this, but it’s run out of fuel!” My heart sank. I went right back up to the car. We discussed our predicament - it was getting pretty dark now, and it was dang cold. There had even been a few tiny snowflakes fall on us when we were packing up.

When we turned onto the Angeles Forest freeway from the 14, the gauge was on 1/4 which we thought was fine, since it’s not far up Vincent. But the steep downward angle must have exposed the fuel tank outlet. We tried pushing the car on a turn, so it faced a bit cross-hill rather than straight down. It didn’t work. And the repeated efforts to start it were really worrying me - we were going to flatten the battery soon. I decided to run back down to the house and ask whether they had fuel. Meanwhile Sean rang Asto, who, nearly back on the tar, punched “nearest gas station” into his GPS and kept driving.

I scrammed back down the hill - getting almost dark now - and headed for the house. A dog came running across at me making a racket so I growled and went for it, bravely telling it I was the boss and fortunately it agreed and gave me a wide berth. I raised the women and kids at the house, explained our predicament, but they had no fuel. I ran down the steep dirt road to several other houses but nobody was home. Numerous phone calls to and from Asto and Sean. I thought how amazing all this technology was, and wondered how it would feel to step back to the time before mobile phones and GPS navigators.

I went back to the first house (which is the one you can see in the DS photos) and asked them for their exact address so Asto could navigate his way to me. I got invited in while we waited for Asto, had a great chat, and got shown a pile of rattlesnake skins and even a complete rattlesnake from the freezer, waiting to be skinned! They said we didn’t need to worry about them while it was so cold, but that when it is hot like it had been a few days ago, they’re around and active. They offered me a rattlesnake skin to take home but I declined, citing potential quarantine issues. Meanwhile Sean sat in the Cherokee alone high on the hill, feeling cold but marvelling at the fantastic views of the lights of the highways below and the metropolis of Palmdale/ Lancaster spreading away to the north. Flat as a tack down there.

Astan had only managed to get a small (1 gallon) can from the gas station. We walked up to Sean in the dark and put the fuel in. The spout of the plastic can was some dangfangled thing that’s meant to deal with fuel and oil mixing but is almost impossible to use when you’ve never seen one before, your hands are freezing and you’re trying not to spill any of the petrol. Asto cursed long, loud and fluently whilst coaxing it into action which was an effective strategy and also helped him to feel better about being miserably uncomfortable in the cold. Finally it was all in the tank and we turned the key ... but apart from one slight cough, it wouldn’t fire. We kept trying, but no go. I got more worried about the battery. I made the executive decision that we were going to leave the Cherokee on the hill overnight, go to a motel in Astan’s car, and bring back more fuel in the morning. Which is what we did. We walked back down the hill armed with my one small torch. The people at the house let us store the long wings in their laundry so we could fold the Honda’s seat back up and all fit in. The GPS guided us to the nearest motel ... a “Motel 8” in Palmdale, which made us feel that we were moving up in the world from the “Motel 6” we stayed at in Mojave.

I didn’t sleep well worrying about this. This morning we got moving, not too early as Sean really felt like crap with his head cold moving into his chest. We filled up 2 fuel containers (we got an extra one from the people at the house) and went back. It was cold again. Walked back up the hill to the car, which had ice on the shady side. I almost couldn’t bear thinking about what we’d do if it didn’t start. While Astan argued with the spout and poured the fuel, I walked back up to the flying site. Wind was too light and too south. Suddenly there was a shout and I looked back- both Sean and Asto had their arms high and their thumbs up. It had started. We drove it down quite uneventfully but got worried when no amount of knocking and phoning (we had exchanged numbers last night) would raise anyone. Dang! It must have been 15 minutes before someone emerged and we got the wings back.

OK, all back on the road again! But we were all pretty ragged. We kept driving on towards LA, and Sean decided that he should book his own car to go and visit his relatives, so he needed internet. We punched “nearest Starbucks” and the silly woman in the TomTom guided us through all sorts of interesting suburban roads to the Starbucks at San Fernando. We got coffees, and they have great internet there! Really fast, and they even have a bench with stools and power points for laptops! Sean booked a car and we punched “Thrifty LAX” into the TomTom. The TomTom lady has a really bad speech impediment, mucking up lots of words. For “Highway 405” she says “Four West Five”, I don’t know why. For LAX, she actually says “lax”. She needs some more training.

Hey don’t feel that you HAVE to read all this stuff, dear reader. Once I get going it’s a bit like a diary for me, so don’t feel obliged.

Anyway, Sean was organizing his car at Thrifty and when he found that he could select any vehicle in the yard that was in the “S” category, ie mid sized SUV. He went looking and quickly found some Jeep Libertys that have low range and a locking diff!!! Man, I was frustrated! This was what we always wanted! I spent ages on phone calls and at the desk myself trying to get a “proper” 4WD and was told they didn’t have any! I think it’s because the Cherokee is a “Standard SUV” so they didn’t think of showing me the Liberty in the “Midsize” category. The three of us checked them out and loved the look of them, and honestly they didn’t seem any smaller inside than the Cherokee! So I spoke to the girl at the desk, and she happily offered to let me swap the Cherokee for one! We all unpacked everything from the Cherokee into the 2 Libertys. Sean has a red one and I got a white one. So I drove out with a new rental car for the third time! It felt great to drive too. Much sportier.

We all came to the same motel where I stayed for my first 3 nights, near Fermin, part of San Pedro. I had to have a short snooze, I was stuffed. But I caught up with the other guys where they were checking out the Fermin flying site, and we had a great fly for the afternoon. Firstly I flew the SC3 and showed Astan and Sean the landing routine, crossing the road, jumping the fence and walking up the hill. A nice guy called Justin, who is one of the F3F racers, turned up with a Ceres and soon did some slashing fast laps, gave us lots of good advice and showed us where the turns would be, in case we do get to the F3F race next weekend. Sean got his Needle up with ballast, and had a great session, as did Astan soon after. I capped it off with another long session with the SC3, and Sean took the sticks for a while, making the SC3 look like a really pro plane.

So! I have caught up again. We went out for an EXCELLENT meal at Mama Joan’s Soul Food restaurant and once again half of the meal is in my fridge! They have great food.

Tomorrow is a temporary parting of the ways for us Aussies. Sean is heading for San Diego to visit his relatives, and Astan is also heading that way to meet up with Jim (Pismo), hopefully also Matin, with the aim of checking out some of the famous frontside sites like Torey Pines. At the moment I have had enough of driving back and forth. I plan to take it easy for a few days and have no agenda,. I’d like to keep in touch with the locals and if they make any flying plans, I’ll go with the flow. For me, the flying is not everything. The experience of just being over here, away from home and family is something to be savoured ... not that I don’t miss them, but in a week this trip will all be over. There’s so much here I haven’t seen. I love being here and I can he happy just walking down a street listening to people talk. I don’t think it really matters what I’m doing - I just want to soak it all in.

That’s it from me for now, and goodnight! I’ll post a few pics too.

Snow on the verandah of our house at Kernville when I got up yesterday.

Dusting of snow on the mountains. View from our house.

Put it this way: Sean and Astan didn't make a whole snowman ... just a small part of a snowman. When we got up into snow on the road to Johnsondale.

Snow action at the highest point of the drive.

We poked down the "closed" road towards the "100 giants" and found that it was indeed impassable.

Snow is very photogenic. It was like Christmas, which is weird, since I've never had snow at Christmas.

Isn't that boy photogenic!

Asto tried to get the Honda up Weldon, unsuccessfully.

This storm looked very spectacular in the desert, near Mojave.

Random shot driving through Mojave.

Storm again, over windmills.

I am fascinated by the windmills!

Arriving at the top of Vincent. 200.9 KB · Views: 88

Me rugging up - it was soooo cold.

Sean's D60 in the DS groove over the famous Joshua tree, which I believe has claimed a few planes.

Same thing. The house below is where we were trying to get to when the Cherokee ran out of fuel, and the people helped us out. The flying site at Vincent is on their land.

The "bad" part of the hill. You can see the Cherokee at the top, where I should have left it.

Astan's Needle ripping in the DS groove.

The boys in action. This is a beautiful spot.

Sean gunning for Astan.

Putting fuel in the Cherokee this morning. Note the ice on the car! It was about 9am. 96.5 KB ·

Fuelling up. What a great view. And the Cherokee started.

At Fermin. Justin about to launch his Ceres.

You fly really close to this concrete structure!

Justin flying the Ceres looking towards my house.

Astan preparing his Needle.

Sean looking towards home while doing F3F turns with his Needle.

More Sean and Needle.

More .... it looked nice.

Concentration ... Sean watched by Justin and the nice young lady whose name I didn't get.

Justin talking Astan through his first Fermin landing, up the top of the hill.

Views around Fermin from the top of the hill.

Looking down towards the flying spot, from the top of the hill.

Here's Sean and Astin DSing their Needles together. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzX23T4fbPc&feature=player_embedded

Astin's Atomic Wedgie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MIXixeLmxk&feature=player_embedded

Apr 10, 2011

Just a quick post tonight. Very laid back day today. Said goodbye to Sean and Astan early this morning as both were on their way south to San Diego. Asto headed off in the Honda to visit Pismo and check out slope sites, and Sean to visit family. I had another one of "those" headaches so it was a slow start for me. But it was nice to be back in the same motel room as where I'd started my adventures.

I stayed here gloating over my lovely new Jeep, did some internet stuff, went to Starbucks, did a bit of cruising the streets looking at LA suburbia and some sightseeing, wandered some shops and fixed my SC3 which had an elevator surface ripped off when Asto hit it accidentally, getting into the car in the dark last night. Good thing I bought some Sikaflex 292.

Around lunchtime I felt like another coffee so went via Fermin (which is literally about 90 seconds drive from here). There was a bloke about to fly, so I stopped to chat and it turned out to be Rick, the friend of Chris Bosley's who I met the day we went to Norco and got the first Jeep into a predicament. He was about to fly a wing but the air was only just getting going. So I went up to Starbucks again, got a coffee and then went to a Subway. Yes, it's pretty much exactly the same as the ones at home.

When I got back to Fermin Rick had finished flying the wing and had got some lunch too, so we sat down in that shelter, ate our lunch and had a great long talk. I know these things seem bigger when you're away from home, but I do feel like I've found some great friends here. But then Chris rang ... he was a few minutes from my Motel and I had to give him some stuff I had there, so I raced back there to meet him, and ... (this is big!) he handed over to me my new baby ... the Stratos DS that I'm buying from him! But we decided that at 3:40pm, it was a bit of a rush to fit my 2.4g Rx and set it up on my radio, so we left that for later and went back to the flying site. Rick was putting together his Aris! I didn't realize he had one, but that's some lovely honey of a plane. Wow. Gorgeous orange wingtops all over. We put the Stratos DS together and got some photos ... but I never flew it today because I'm not brave enough to fly Mode 1! I flew my SC3 for a couple of long flights. It's so much easier to learn rolling loops when there's lift to burn! Chris had 2 flights of the Stratos and it was super impressive. Big and fast. But he reckons it just lights up in mild to moderate air DS.

Another guy called Chris (C.Winter on RCG I think) showed up and flew various smaller moldies with us too. I'm getting the Fermin landings down well and can scarper across the road, jump the fence, climb the hill and land on top quite well now, and I even did a hand catch!! Woo-hoo! We were there for hours - a great session.

I went to dinner with Chris's parents which was really excellent. I couldn't thank them enough for the invite and they seemed totally non-stressed about having me. On the way back we went to a small track between houses (the area is high up on a hill and Chris knows it from childhood) and looked at the lights of LA spread out below. I've never seen such a massively sprawling expanse of city lights. Just as we walked back to the car, Chris said "oh, look at that, you can see the fireworks!" It was the fireworks of Disneyland which go off every night at 9:30pm. My daughter loved hearing that on the phone just now.

Tomorrow I will wander around - I have a whole list of stuff I'd like to do such as visiting Joe Manor's workshop, visiting Soaring USA, going to shops to get stuff my kids want and later in the afternoon, wind permitting, we're hoping to fly at Glider Point and I could maiden the Stratos under its new management. I wanted to put a 2.4 Rx into it but the aerial extensions aren't long enough to exit behind the nose cone so I might take the easy way out and set it up on my old radio.

Anyway, good night! Oh, I'll see if I can find some good photos.

Yes, it will seem like a bit of an anticlimax flying at Shorncliffe! But any sort of flying is better than working.

I dunno if we'll hire the D10 Dozer and create a mega DS hill ... unless we can find some way to get wind! That's the other half of the equation and here, they have so much more wind. Here on the coast the westerly sea breeze just kicks in after lunch almost like clockwork. You couldn't have flown even a light plane at 12 midday, due to inadequate lift but at 4pm you couldn't have flown a light plane coz it would have gone backwards! And inland they have huge winds funnelling through valleys, like at Weldon, Vincent and Mars. We just don't have nuthin' like it, except maybe a few days a year if you can pick it, and get there on the day.

Some photos!

Attached Thumbnails

Chris with the Stratos DS in my motel room. Hmm, no I don't think I'll be able to fit it into my bed with me. Sorry baby!

Rick about to launch the Stratos DS for Chris.

Stratos DS in the air.

Posers with their fancy planes.

Me with my new toy. Haven't flown it yet.

Landing routine ... Chris climbing the fence.

Lining the plane up before walking up the hill.

Me about to launch the SC3 again.

SC3 at Fermin.

SC3 flying with a peregrine falcon at Fermin.

SC3 at Fermin.

Getting ready to land.

Cross the road.

Walk up the hill.

Still walking up the hill

At the top, lose some height and speed 114.4 KB · Views: 55

Good approach - the wind is so strong and laminar up there, lighter planes will go backwards under full flaps.

Fermin landing.

Lights of LA at night, seen from a street in Palos Verde.

Sean pushing his scratch built Deepend to 296mph on about its 3rd flight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnNziv1P3w&feature=player_embedded

Apr 11, 2011

Had the HUGE spicy breakfast at the “Pacific Diner” a few doors up. Can’t remember how I wasted all the time. Phone calls, a bit of work stuff to do, looking up addresses and directions. But I had one important thing to do - bring the Stratos fuse up and set it up. I got started but kept hitting brick walls. Unfortunately I had problems fitting my 2.4 gig Rx in because the whiskers weren’t long enough to exit the fuse back past the nose cone join. Bummer. I rang Hitec/ Multiplex USA to ask if longer antenna extensions were available, got thru to a tech help guy who was had a real superior attitude and told me firmly that M-Link (Multiplex’s 2.4) wasn’t approved for use in the USA and they don’t sell any at all! So I decided to put my FM receiver in. First I had the challenge of getting Chris’s Rx out - not easy! He’s built this plane really solidly, which is nice. Once the spot on the keel was clear I tried the MPX Fm Rx, and it was too fat for the nose cone to fit on! Bummer again. I gave up and packed it into the car.

I was off on my way to see Joe Manor at Riverside, about an hour and 20 away from where I was at Fermin (San Pedro). That GPS TomTom that Spencer loaned me is REALLY useful! Most of the trip was just sitting at 70mph on one freeway, then only a few turns, and with no stress the TomTom put me right at Joe’s place. It’s a sort of light industrial estate and you wouldn’t even know Joe’s shop was there, but I recognized his FourRunner parked outside. Joe was energetically polishing the centre panel of the D130. It’s a big rush, and this was the last part to be polished. The tips sitting on the table had HUGE joiners of solid aluminium! The fuse and tailgroup were ENORMOUS! I can only wrap my hand halfway around the nose! Joe has a meeting tomorrow night at Torrey Pines to talk about DS and show off the D130, and just wanted to get it in one shiny piece for display! We took it outside and got some show-off photos. then he kindly helped me with the Stratos - we took the Rx out of its case and Joe shrink wrapped it neatly for me and soldered an extension on my aerial. All these guys are so generous. Joe has heaps of work to do but he insisted on helping me. He carried a table in from the workshop area and set me up so I could put the Stratos together and set it up on my radio. I felt very honoured and humbled to be working on my plane in Joe Manor’s workshop!

Joe was toying with whether to try to cut out the ailerons etc but decided it was too much of a rush for today. He got stuck into making wing bags, ironing that thick silver sided bubble wrap stuff with a roller heat iron. It did a great job.

I got to wander around the workshop having a look at stuff. I remembered the D160 build thread which we all watched avidly from Australia ... and it was all done in here, and there were the molds! Joe showed me a whole D160 wing in the back room, surrounded by all manner of planes - a 3D aerobat, foamies, other moldies. There’s lots of stuff, but it’s all neat. Joe’s cabinetmaker tradesman professionalism shows through in the way he clears up everything as he works on it. Great to see. Every time he needed something he knew exactly where it was.

We finished around 4pm and I intended to go to Glider Point to meet Chris and Rick. But Rick called to say it was crap - too far west. So I spoke to Joe about alternatives, and he spent quite a while giving me directions to quite a good slope at La Sierra, about 20 minutes away, which Joe said had good lift, could be DSed to maybe 200, and had nice laminar air over a grass landing area. Sounded great. Again the TomTom guided the way and I found the track, and was very glad to find that in low range locked mode the Jeep Liberty gripped well, completely different to the Cherokee. But I quickly got worried by the huge washouts and rocks in the track. Wow. I didn’t expect it to be that hard. I got up past one tricky bit, but stopped before one bit with so many deep ruts it didn’t look do-able. I walked up to check, and decided to pull the pin and head down. I had quite some trouble on the tricky bit, but when I rang Joe to tell him that I hadn’t made it, and I wondered if the track was more washed out than the last time he did it, he said “oh, no, I take my FourRunner up there all the time!”

So I headed back to town and decided to pull up at a motel - it was about 6pm. I spent hours in a local big shopping mall getting stuff for the family and a few clothes. Shopping malls over here are really no different to ours at home, but one thing is that clothes are definitely cheaper. It’s easy to get a good pair of Levi’s for $30 or 40.

Anyway, here I am in a really plush motel room and it’s 10:30pm. Apart from the privilege of visiting Joe, it was otherwise a day of not much - I didn’t get to fly anywhere at all, and I started to feel a bit bored and directionless ... and probably a bit homesick I’m ashamed to say. When I called my daughter Caitlin from the Sephora perfume shop to boast that I actually had the special perfume she’d asked me to get from the other side of the world, I actually got a bit choked up. OK, ok, soppy I know, but I tell it like it is.

At least I managed to find someone who could look at my phone and work out why I can’t get internet, when Sean who has the same prepaid sim deal can get it on his Iphone. It’s because the T-Mobile 3G works natively on Iphones, but you have to take out an “Android Plan” for it to work on Android phones ... not available on prepaid.

Hey American TV is so much crap! I’m not sure if it’s just in motel rooms but they have about 3 million channels, and heaps of them are just advertising!!! One channel is all about some thing to work your abs while you’re in bed. Another is about bras. One seemed just to be about the Ford Focus, and had interactive games and quizzes (how many Model T Fords were made?). Others for medicines, cosmetic enhancements, medical insurance, etc etc etc! Basically most times I end up switching it off coz I just can’t find anything worth watching! At the moment I’ve stumbled across Crocodile Dundee 2, which is at least amusing.

Another stupid thing is that they show all the prices of things WITHOUT the sales tax! So you pick a hamburger for $2.99, and they ask for $3.39 or something. What a dumb idea.

There are just so many cars. You really see far more cars than people. It’s hardly surprising, because cars are so cheap compared to Oz. I just saw an advert for the new VW Jetta for $15,000. Petrol is also much cheaper - about $1 per litre, but they’re really upset because it was much cheaper until the recent big price rises on fuel.

In Joe Manor's workroom - the D130 fuse and tail and tips.

Hey kids, how many Dynamics can you see hidden in this photo?!

Joe polishing the centre panel. He likes to leave the surfaces waxed and reckons that glue smears won't stick and it doesn't scratch easily.

The plugs for the D130, assembled.

Tah-Dah!!!

Putting the right tip on. Look at the size of the joiner!

The cutout for top driven ailerons. You can see Joe's reflection - it's a mirror finish.

First public appearance

Hey kids, wheeeeeeere's Joe?!

There he is!

It's big.

Gives an idea of the size.

Working on my new Stratos in the Manor workshop. Well, almost mine ... I own about 85% of it - still have to get some more cash to Chris. It's solidly built.

Apr 12, 2011

I really like this motel. It has a waffle maker in the breakfast room!!! I've never seen one before. Might have to go back there before I check out! Also it has a Jacuzzi spa bath in the room!!! Not really my thing but what a waste ... my wife would love this place!

I didn't realize that the hill I was trying to get up to yesterday arvo is part of the Norco hills. I'm really close to Norco here. I'm gonna drive back past that way and perhaps go for a walk to the top.

Then might drive to Soaring USA to say Hi from Australia, and then head north again I think. I'm hankering for a dose of Weldon again.

Tues 12 March.

Tues 12 March.

I was keen to get away early this morning but it’s amazing how long everything takes! I had to sort out some work issues with back home, talk to a few guys about plans for the next couple of days, and I also followed up the issue of a license to allow Sean and I to compete in the F3F event at Fermin on Saturday. I rang the AMA ... and boy is it different to our system back home! It answers “you have rung the Academy of Model Aeronautics ... please listen to the following menu. Press 1 for this, 2 for that, and 3 for insurance issues. (OK, press 3). Please press 1 for event insurance. 2 for personal cover inquiries and 3 for existing claims (OK, press 2). It then told me that the operators were busy with other members, and played a nice message about how the field at Muncie Indiana, where the AMA is based, is fantastic for various reasons. Wow, it was like ringing the ANZ bank!!! After a while the nice lady helped me and emailed me the appropriate form to get an “affiliate membership” for $28. I had to fill it in and fax it back and the process would take a day or 2. Hmm, better do this now.

I was able to print it out from the computer at the front desk, fill it in and fax it (all much cheaper than in Australian motels!). I have a spare copy for Sean too. But it was funny listening to the Indian guy at the desk, with the surname Patel, which along with Singh must be the equivalent of Smith. He was talking on the phone and seamlessly switching between English and his native tongue: “Indian Indian Indian Indian has a vacuum pump and that’s how that works but Indian Indian Indian Indian smaller so they could test it with the gauge Indian Indian Indian Indian”.

Next stop was the mall again, where I got the caffeine fix and back to JC Penney ... The $40 Levi 550 jeans I got last night fit so good I went back to get another pair. Despite the cool outside it was dang hot in the shopping centre. I saw a young guy who honestly had his ears done like African tribal women do, with a big hole in the earlobe filled with a big disc, dangling way down low. It was weird. There are plenty of weird people here. I stopped to get some sort of deodorant that my son wanted from the USA and while I was there, a guy was spending $260 on perfumes and stuff! This was the mens section! Weird.

Next step was to go for a walk up Norco. I only realized last night that the hill I tried to get up yesterday arvo was very, very close to the Norco hill! So it only took 10 minutes to drive there. I went back up the track behind the cemetery where I’d gone with Chris and Rick on my 2nd day over here, and put the Jeep into low-lock, and it worked really well. I stopped just short of where we’d got in trouble with the Cherokee. I looked at it to see whether I’d be brave enough to take this car over it? No way! So I took some photos of the spot, packed up some gear in the backpack and carried the SC3 to the top.

Strewth, that hill is steep!!!! I don’t mind walking up hills, but this was a solid short climb! And the decomposed granite soil is slippery. It got steeper near the top and I couldn’t imagine driving a 4WD up there. I know some of the southerners thing us Qlders are crazy, but these Californians make us look soft.

Soon I was at the top and Chris guided me to the rock wall overlooking the eastern side. So here I was, paying homage to the site of the current 468mph world record. Wow. What a view, and the backside is much steeper than the front! Yes, those houses down there are close! It all looked familiar from watching the video of the day Spencer cracked 468. It was calm today so it was hard to imagine Spencer and Chris up there in near-cyclonic winds with the K100 shrieking around at that speed. I walked up to the knoll where there’s a cross and a rather shredded American flag, thinking I might fly ... but it was too light. I got some photos of myself on this legendary hill and headed down.

I wanted to visit Soaring USA but Annette said Bob was away flying today, so I postponed it and tapped “Mojave” into the GPS. The TomTom lady guided me eastward, away from LA but I went with it, thinking I could blame her if it turned out to be a bum steer, so to speak. I headed for Barstow for ages, leaving the metropolis and entering big, sparsely covered mountains ... but as always the view was dominated by the massive concrete freeways. Even out in the middle of nowhere, there will be an exit with extravagantly constructed looping offramps and flyovers. But eventually she told me to exit left and head across a smaller road through San Bernadino. There were substantial looking houses here and there on the hills, and lots of empty space. Soon some enormous rock formations called Mormon Rocks loomed up. The huge mountain backdrops had streaky snow on the peaks. There were signs saying “Vehicles obstructing snow plows will be removed”. It was pretty spectacular.

I think that in Australia we probably have the same stuff, like the dominant freeways, the stratified formations and the rock structures, but because everything is generally so thickly vegetated it doesn’t stick out! When there is a lot of bushland, trees around civilization, thick grass and shrubbery, you don’t see a lot of what’s there. But this area of California is like a place that’s been through a bushfire ... everything’s exposed. It’s sort of like a nude landscape. But it’s also obvious that it’s a geologically young area. It looks rough, rippled and bumped up. Near Fermin there’s an area of road which keeps subsiding and falling away so much that it’s under constant repair. The edge of the coastline keeps breaking up like a crumbly cake and bits fall into the ocean. If they grade the road, in no time it’s got huge whoops in it again.

It felt like a more “normal” road in the country, sort of like between Toowoomba and Dalby but as it got flatter, rather than crops it was cactus to the horizon! I stopped to take photos of the “deserty-looking desert”. It looked like the wild west, but the dirt roads turning off here and there had road names like “227th St East”! Soon I got a fright when low screech noise made me think something was wrong with the Jeep, till I saw a fighter jet on landing approach right above. I was going past a Grumman -something base next to an airstrip - it was huge. Several fighters were taking off and landing.

I got a call from Alan Hansen, one of my local mates who has been into gliders with us but more recently working hard sponsoring a really talented bike racer who’s getting a position with one of the Yamaha teams. Alan is the guy who made me the stickers that say “Aussie DS Safari - Windsock”. I didn’t even know he’d been watching these posts but he said seeing the photos of the SC3 at Weldon with those stickers brought a tear to his eye! I really appreciated the call. But in fact I was spending far too much time on the phone while driving. Fortunately my Motorola Defy has an excellent speakerphone but I seemed to be spending the entire time using it, and sorting out work hassles back in Australia, although necessary, did tend to ruin the holiday mood!

The miles flew by ... skirting Palmdale with a quick stop at Starbucks. Then along to Mojave with the fields of windmills and all the jumbo jets in storage beside the runway, past the Red Rock Gorge and soon turn off to the west. I stopped at the top of Walkers Pass for the traditional leak at 5200 feet. Hey, it seemed quite windy! (and cold). Cruised down the range and finally, I arrived at the hill about 5:30pm! I really got butterflies in my gut when I saw that hill, and a cloud of dust blowing up on the back of the saddle!

Hey, one thing that’s very different to home is that you just don’t see cows. The only place I’ve seen ANY cows is at the farm at the bottom of the Weldon hill!

As I came up the last part of the hill Aston’s Wedgie was ripping around in spectacular fashion so I got out to get some video. It made DS noises like a much bigger moldie!

At the top, John and Astan were really enjoying the flying. Asto reached 192 or so with the Wedgee and John tried to buy it off him. Astan also got his Needle out again and got 234! That plane is a gem. He really tried hard but couldn’t beat his airframe PB of 237. John flew a D80. Some young locals came up in a ute carrying a dirt bike and stopped to watch. They’d heard about it and were really blown away. They must have stayed for an hour watching various planes.

The conditions weren’t record breaking but were otherwise perfect. I finally got the Opus up and started cutting some laps, with the occasional break and some deep breathing exercises to calm down! But I did do better laps and felt calmer this time. I think the good session at Vincent helped. I’m learning about letting the plane “run” straighter on the entry and exit, and working the position and shape of the top and bottom turn ... you have to tailor this for each site. I got up to 202 and felt like I was wringing it out, but the truth is there’s plenty of room for improvement.

I was confident with the landing, and came up the ridge, imagining the Daemon standing beside me giving patient advice. “Over the track - flaps down in the turn ... flaps up now, let it come up ... now” .... Oh, sheeeyit, it’s going too far back! I somehow got it just behind the track and it was going down! I turned it back and tried to dive into the backside and come out lower down the ridge, but the Opus sank like a stone! I ended up turning it back and flying it into the hill, and it looked like it landed OK and flipped, but it was so far down that for all I knew it may have hit a big rock. But it turned out to be undamaged. The walk back up was hard! I stopped for a rest 4 times! When I got to the top I said to John and Astan “ this plane has many lives ... I think Flyboyjimi’s hands are holding the wingtips!

The sunset was close. John got out his big Orange Pike Giant and did some DS way over the backside, crossing the shear without coming over the ridge. I decided I had no excuse, took a big deep breath and started putting together my Stratos DS. I had to finish a few tweaks, we all checked it over, then it was right to go. I was very nervous, and knew that if I stuffed this up I wouldn’t be able to show my face to Chris ever again! John got video of Astan launching it, and it flew straight out. I got Asto to take over a couple of times while I dialled the elevator centring and the crow compensation. Asto seemed to be drooling over the plane, or he was trying to make me feel better about the purchase; I dunno. But it did fly perfectly. It was a bit lazy so we dialled up the aileron rate. It looped and rolled nicely, and reminded me a lot of flying my Fazo.

I succumbed willingly to the urging of the cheer party and dived in over the back. Wow. It got ripping nicely, very controlled. In a very few laps it got 144 which was enough, and it was nice to use the energy for some very amateur acro. Nice. The landing was nice too. I did 3 passes, each lower, until I finally floated it in.

It was very beautiful up there after sunset ... the lake in the background and the mountains all around. John Buxton tossed the Pike out about 8 times, doing hand catches. I stood there in the chilling air, thinking it doesn’t get any better than this.

So here we are, Asto and I, back in the same house at Kernville. Looking forward to a big day at Weldon tomorrow - it could hit 60mph wind gusts in the arvo.

I won’t do the photos now ... it’s after midnight.

The call from Alan today made me appreciate that I don’t realize how many people are reading this, so I want to say thanks to all the readers ... it really makes it all worthwhile.

Next episode; Will AvB go over 250?
Will Asto get over 300?
What will the Deepend do??? (Sean’s arriving back here after lunch).

Tune in next time!

Apr 13, 2011

Here are some pics of yesterday:

I think this is the hill that Joe was trying to send me to on Monday. It's actually really close to Norco.

I was just admiring these nice rolling soft grassy fields, thinking you could do some nice flying there, when ...

I came across this sign, for "Corona RC Club" - not sure if it's for aircraft, though.

Wouldn't you like to have these hills near your backyard? And what a handsome looking Jeep! Still can't figure out how to make the interior lights come on.

On the Norco hill again! This is the spot where we got into trouble last time. This Jeep Liberty is a much better 4WD than the Cherokee, but there was no way I was going any further!

That's what stopped us last time. But it gets worse further up.

View to the north east, I think.

That's what I didn't want to happen to me.

At the top! My SC3 paying homage to the world record site. Looking north from the flying spot.
Looking south.

Looking south on the ridge

Looking north on the ridge

Immortalized at Norco

At the top of the knoll on the north end. The DSing spot is sort of part way along the ridge, not on the high spots.

Now this is deserty-looking desert. Look at the mountains.

To prove I was there.

These guys should sponsor my trip.

At the top of Weldon around 5:45pm. These local kids came up for a long look. We flew till 7:30 or so.

Just after I arrived. John flying a D60 I think.

Just after maidening the Stratos.

Astan is getting creative with his photography ... that's me with the Stratos and Lake Isabella in the background.

John doing a hand catch on top.

And again

Nice shot.

About to catch the Pike Giant again

John doing another hand catch with the Pike. Must have done 8 in a row.

Apr 13, 2011

I am really shagged out (and more than a bit sad about trashing Flyboyjimi's Opus) and am not going to embark on writing the report tonight. I have pages of scratched notes, smeared with dirt, to work through.

Incredible thing today, being at Weldon in the best wind that any of them have seen - even John B hasn't seen wind that good up there. A pity his D80 went in early, and a pity he didn't get any PB's. He was generously gunning for others a lot of the time ... also thanks to Bob Kelly, who guns all day.

Five planes completely destroyed ... agony after ecstasy. With the huge wind comes the huge eddies, rotors that suck you in but in 70mph winds at 300+, there's not a lot of time to think. I survived 3 massive, shoulda-been-fatal rotor roll-ins today but wasn't so lucky when I tried to fly in the full-on winds. Very sad, I wish I was taking that plane home in one piece.

More tomorrow ... I am gonna have a shower. You have no idea how much dirt gets into every bit of your skin, ears, eyes, nose, cameras, transmitters, all through your car. Incredible.

What a huge day. We'll be hungover from it tomorrow.

Wed 13 March - the BIG day at Weldon!

I was up too early, not enough sleep but couldn’t sleep with the cold! Realized the thermostat had a dicky switch and hadn’t actually turned the heater up. It was about 3 degrees C outside. Too late now - I was up. Got some stuff organized, and Asto was up around 8am. We heard that the wind was good, so we packed as fast as possible and went to town for coffee and to pick up something to take for lunch, and were off. Driving past the lake there were white caps and streaks on the water - woo-hoo, that’s unusual this early! The forecasts yesterday had been saying gusts to 60 knots, then it seemed this morning to be a bit downgraded to 45 or so. Still sounded good to me. But there were some clouds around too and I hoped that the day didn’t get ruined by rain.

Now before I go too far, I have to say that so much happened that day, it’s impossible to cover it in enough detail .... I am writing this on Friday morning at John Buxton’s place and it all seems like a dream ...

We got to the top of the hill at 9:15. Fairly cold. Chris and Spencer were up there - they had been there for an hour or so, having left ridiculously early from LA. They were under a bit of pressure as Spencer HAD to get back in time for a family dinner ... which must have been a conflict for him as the forecasts were for the wind to increase in the afternoon. But Spencer is really responsible with prioritizing his family - I praise him for that. I think Bob Kelly was already there too. He lives about 40 miles from the hill, near Kernville. He’s a flyer but doesn’t DS, and just loves being up there - he spends the whole day radarring for everyone and is very much part of the team. I like having Bob around.

The wind was just nice. By my Aussie standards, it was unbelievably nice. About 15 knots, quite smooth, and a clear fine day. Spencer had already gone 150 or so with the K60 ... this was the current world record holder K60 which has the older foil. Chris flew the D80 which he’d got the airframe record with. Spencer put together the K100 that he recently got the 468mph world record with.

At this stage the guys were having a fly here and there - the air was smooth, but not huge-speed material. Lots of setting up planes etc. However it steadily increased and at 10:10am Asto dug harder and harder with his D80, went past his PB and spent what seemed like ages hanging really consistently around 270, with Spencer beside him gunning and giving advice. The wind picked up and suddenly Asto had 298mph!! The air was good ... no surprises ... and of course at 298 Asto wasn’t gonna give up and he kept working it - he would have flattened his battery trying to get that thing over 300! Really great flying. Asto was looking like a really pro flyer.

I was taking lots of photos and video, and at those speeds it got hard to keep track of the plane. If you lost sight of it, the best thing was to look up at the top turn, then you could reacquire the sight and lock onto it again. But if I thought it was hard with Asto, it was gonna get much harder later! Keep reading!

I was really nervous about flying but finally got myself together and launched the Opus. It didn’t make me feel better, having Chris saying “C’mon, let’s see 250 - I know you’re going to do it”. I was having one of those crises of self confidence, and worried that I was going to make a total fool of myself. As usual I remembered that I’d already convincingly done that many times, so there was nothing to lose, so I got into it. Spencer was coaching me (I was thinking wow, can you believe this?) and he watches and gives clear tips, spoken slowly and calmly (like Ezza) which really helps. “Fly across a bit further to the left, take it a bit more away from the hill, and bank left a bit (this idea gave me the shakes) that way you have room to do something if you get rolled in and it gives you a better line to the gun. That’s it. Open it up running up the hill - just let go of the elevator. Oh, is that tucking down a little? Feed in a couple of clicks of up. Nice. Two more of those and you’ll have it.”
All was going well when BANG, the Opus got rolled like a shot-down duck and disappeared behind the hill, coming out of the bottom turn. It all happens so fast but I pulled up instantly and it shot out the back inverted and I was able to roll back, turn and had plenty of speed to come back over the top. I must have been feeling confident because I banked left and sent the Opus straight back down on the attack. I got it to 252, and I was really chuffed. It was a bumpy landing, but the Opus was in one piece. Chris seemed genuinely so proud of me he wanted to hug me. I wasn’t going to argue - for me this was a big moment!

We had an esteemed visitor as well. I’ll probably get some details wrong, but Phil Richardson is an oceanography scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanography Centre in Massachusetts. He has a special interest in the dynamic soaring behaviour of Albatross, and has written a key paper about it. He travels the world researching, and recently went down to South Georgia and near Antarctica where they had the opportunity to spend a lot of time watching and recording the Albatross which constantly DS the backs of huge ocean waves for thousands of miles without beating their wings. He has been on TV documentaries about the subject. He has been communicating with Spencer and Chris for some time but today was his first ever experience of seeing RC DS. It was funny seeing Spencer and Phil squatting behind the rock wall, scratching wing diagrams on the ground as they talked about DS theory. Don was the pilot who flew Phil in and he was a great bloke too, so both of them were very involved with everything today, asking questions, taking photos, and being urged to get behind the wall and out of danger!

The D80 Chris was flying was his frame record plane but it had been crashed and repaired, and he was really happy that it was flying well again. He got it to 304mph and raved about how good that felt, pointing to the un-sanded cracks on the wingskin and saying hey, it could have got 305 if that was smooth!

Spencer flew the WR K100. It looks totally gorgeous with the fluoro orange, but they have to keep this colour covered as much as possible as it will fade in sunlight eventually. The K100 locked in immediately and accelerated unbelievably fast. I can’t remember the exact numbers but Bob’s calls were something like 220 ... 290 ... 340 ... and it maxed at 375. Wow. That was breaking new ground for us - never seen a plane go as fast as that before. But I was gunning too, and frustratingly could get no reads at all on Spencer’s Stalker. Darn. With the added difficulty of trying to SEE the K100 which is so slim, it was pretty frustrating. A local farmer with his young teenage daughter had driven up to have a look too, and they squatted in the bunker behind a rock, and were really fascinated by it. After Spencer landed (a perfect floaty landing) he had a look at the radar gun and found that it had been set to a max of 300! Fortunately he knew how to fix it.

Asto was always keen to get out for another go, and soon he was ripping fast laps again with his D80. The wind was definitely stronger. He got that sucker wound up to 314, which got hoots of celebration and praise ... Chris reckoned this just nudged him up to equal lowest position on the “Big Dog List”! (that’s the top 20 fastest pilots). In the midst of this rejoicing he kept pushing (naturally!) and the D80’s whine was cut short by a soft pop. Everyone looked at Asto, and he lowered his tranny. It was sinking in. The D80 had got rolled viciously, and went in massively hard.

I missed getting it on film, but there was no missing the tragedy of the moment. Little did we know how much more was to follow.

In seconds, Spencer was skipping and sliding down the hill like a mad mountain goat, making a bee line. I got there just after and we surveyed the scene. There were bits of composite shell all over the place. We started picking it all up. Spencer really wants to analyse what happened, how it went in etc. A bit lower, below a rock, there was a sort of horizontal mark; a bare line across the hill which looked like a scrape. But Spencer said no, it was the line of the wing leading edge smacking into the hill. He went to the midpoint of the line, and started digging. Under the dirt he found a jagged tube and kept digging around it (this deco dirt is pretty soft) and eventually pulled and wiggled out the fuse, from nose tip to behind wing seat. There was an electrical smell and you could hear the battery fizzing. All of the fuselage fittings had crowded right into the nose tip and busted out. The ballast strips that had been bolted over the CG on the fuse floor had ripped off, and were compressed into the nose in a squashed wave shape, like a pile of wet lasagne. There were little bits of wire and reciever in the dirt. It was a mess, and rather shocking to see how much force was involved. We picked it all up and went back to the top.

It was a fair walk up, and I stopped at one point and said to Spencer that I might sit down and take some notes, and he asked me to wait till I got to the top so that others can keep flying. Of course! While there was record breaking wind, not a minute was to be wasted.

Next up was Sean with the Deepend. He flew absolutely relentlessly for about 25 minutes, and hovered around 290 for ages. I felt terrible offering Sean any advice because he’s a master, but I urged him to go closer to the hill. But in the aftermath of Asto’s crash it was understandable that he was cautious, not helped by the Deepend encountering a massive spitout which shot it skywards, but Sean dove straight back in and hard. The guys were giving him advice but he commented that it was a bit of a struggle, and that he seemed to be always on the ailerons. He got it to 301 - great to break that barrier, but we all knew that the plane and its flyer deserved better than that.

John Buxton got out a new D80, set it up and launched it, and in no time flat was DSing really fast. But I barely had time to get a bead on it, and it flicked or tucked in as it was cresting the ridge, only about 30 metres along from the rock wall. Wow. Because it went in at a lower angle, bits flew everywhere and we had a search party going for about 20 minutes, but the fuse was NEVER found! There was a spot where I was sure I could smell a burning electrical smell but despite digging and digging with my hands, I only found a few yellow specks. A shovel would have been useful. I still think it’s down there, a long way under the dirt.

While some of us were talking and looking, someone said “Where’s John - is he looking over the other side?” ... “No, he’s putting together another one!” Sure enough, John was about to launch another D80, and got it up to 301. Talk about getting back on the horse that threw you!

The wind was getting really strong now, and it made you nervous to see clouds of dust being blown up on the roads way below the backside of the hill! I knew I had to have another go, so I got back into it with the Opus. I have to give that plane some praise ... it cut through really well and it’s a light plane compared to all the others that were flying. With the bigger wind it was obvious that the Opus was really ripping around fast. It made you want to do huge, far-away circles but you had to stay in charge and put it in the right line, staying closer, not too deep, rolling in towards the gunners and opening up to exit not far in front of us. Frick that was some speed, I thought and tried to keep bossing that thing back into the groove. I worked on keeping it knife edge ... one of my faults is flattening out on the exit, and when I fought that and kept the wing standing up I was rewarded with a good line and good acceleration. It was too windy to hear the gunners below, but there was one gun with us, at the rock wall, and I knew when I got over 252 ... it was all new territory from here. Again I had another scary roll-in and shot out the back - same deal as before, but I started to feel good that I’d been able to save it each time. I was just trying to fly smoothly, but listening to the advice of the others. I heard Chris say “How about 275, come on?” and I thought “here he goes, putting pressure on again!”. But there was something funny about the way he said it again ... then another guy said “Gee that’s not bad” and my eyebrows went up and I asked “do you mean I GOT 275? I had to ask 3 times to be sure and man, I was so ecstatic! I didn’t realize I’d get so excited. I was literally dancing and yelling with joy. I know it sounds cliche, but I didn’t think I’d get that. I said “OK, that’s OK for me, I’m stopping now” and started walking back over to the windy front to land, and Chris was yelling “Hey Andy, do you wanna know what they got on the bottom gun?” I couldn’t look, but replied querulously “Yes???” and he shouted “TWO NINETY SEVEN!!!!” I don’t have to tell you guys how stoked I was and stupidly I’m tearing up here writing this! What a memory. Bloody unreal.

When Spencer was putting together the K130 he got me to hold a wingtip for a minute, and I’m not at all exaggerating to say it could truly have been shaped from steel - it was that heavy. Incredible. Now it was all assembled, the covers off, and polished up. Tape over the joins, and Spencer gets under it to blow any grit out from the linkages ... it looks like he’s kissing it! The dirt gets into everything and jams switches and stuff ... Sean later had problems with his elevator stick going crunchy with dirt as he was flying! My cameras were constantly getting dirt all over the lens. Despite having the windows shut, dirt was blowing around and into the back of the Jeep, so there was a layer of shiny dust, like mica, over absolutely everything. Launching the K130 into about 45-55mph wind ... it could have been a Fazer launching into 10 knots, it was so smooth and floaty. It cruised up to 375mph easily, and naturally doesn’t look so fast, being so big. But Spencer said “I got a problem with the elevator” and he pulled out, and did the MOST PERFECT flat floaty landing you could imagine, and filled us in on the problem. The elevator was glitching in a way that meant it held back then jumped, and I had noticed that it looked like Spencer was yanking at the end of the bottom turn - however this wasn’t intentional. He had this problem last time he flew it and decided it could be tailboom flex or a faulty servo. He fixed the tailboom, but as we saw the problem was still there. He is cautious and decided not to fly until he was able to sort it out properly.

Chris was really impressive flying the old D80. John Buxton offered Astan a fly of the D80 he’d just flown. Astan said he couldn’t, and John let him go. John later confided that he knew Astan would decline, but that he’d eventually give in, and John kept offering as he really wanted him to have a chance at a big speed. Finally Asto did agree, and spent about half an hour setting it up with his radio. This was very generous of John because it meant that he was giving up his own chance to fly, to let Astan have a go.

Meanwhile Sean had another Deepend flight and started to break through. The wind was pretty wild . He did lots of laps around 350, and lots of missed reads. We were in big speed country now and Sean had the turbocharger whining. I urged him to get lower so the guns could get a good bead on the Deepend, and it clocked up to 370. Again, we all felt it had more in it. Sean landed nicely and we got the celebratory victory photo. I felt like a one man band keeping up with the action, taking still photos, lots of video, helping out with gunning, pitching in to help the others get into the air, sending texts to home and Ezza to keep them in the loop and of course looking after my own gear and flying.

Meanwhile Asto was just going wild with the new D80 of John’s. Chris went onto the crazy frontside with an anemometer and came back yelling that he had just recorded the highest wind speed they’d ever got up here while flying... 71mph. Sean and I looked at each other. It took some sinking in. Not only did we come to California, not only did we get to Weldon, not only did we get to fly with the best guys in the world ... we somehow managed to be here on the biggest day yet. It was just crazy.

Eric rang us back and I sat in the car to talk. Dead set, the car was shaking and there was a muffled booming sound all the time! Sean had landed and got in the car too, to chat with Eric.

Spencer launched the K100 again - the world record one. We all knew this could be something big. Everything was there for a world record opportunity, and Spencer was calmly focussed on achieving it. Again SL and the K100 were a ruthless opponent to the wild conditions and it sliced in ever faster circles. There was no doubt this time - if you weren’t watching it, you couldn’t track it. You could hear the noise, but you couldn’t see the plane. Again the only way was to wait for it to make the top turn and usually you’d see it flash and you’d track it OK from there. Almost impossible to get photos or video. The speeds wound up quickly and for the first time ever, us Aussies heard speeds yelled in the 400’s. Wow. It didn’t look different - it was just harder to follow. The speeds just climbed higher and the top speed I heard called was 451 - just 17mph below the WR, when suddenly the plane shot up high out to the front and Spencer yelled “popped an aileron”. We all watched, stupefied and disappointed, as the plane wandered over the sky ... “can’t turn right” . You have to remember that even over the back, the wind noise was so loud that it was even hard to hear the guys a few feet away unless they yelled. What happened next was the K100 flew over the hill and descended way over the back, and we all watched and kept yelling and pointing in case Spencer lost sight, but he didn’t, and seemed to have a little control. It wandered around ... I thought it still had some height right when it went in nice and flat on the greenery between the hill and the road.

There was no way to know whether it was damaged - it was so far away it was a speck. I cleared a few things out of my Jeep; Spencer jumped in, and we drove to the bottom. The man is a jackrabbit ... I hadn’t even got the engine off and he was bounding across the slight uphill on a beeline for his mark, and didn’t even have to zigzag - he had the plane. He returned with it looking absolutely undamaged. Neither aileron was working but the flaps were. Spencer banged his palm on his forehead and groaned “Maybe this is just a simple case of a plug coming loose” so we carefully undid the wing, gently opened up the gap and he peered in ... yep, sure enough one of the 2 MPX plugs had pulled away. He used to tape all the plugs but has become very confident in them, and stopped taping them. Sure bet he’s gonna tape them from now! The forces acting on everything in these planes go up exponentially at these windspeeds. It was a lucky thing ... someone was really looking after him with that landing. Probabilities were it should have been lost or totalled, but by a miracle it escaped unscathed. After he lost aileron, he switched his radio to allow aileron to flap mixing, so he had a tiny bit of aileron control via the small amount of flap movement ... and I’m talking barely 3mm of up and maybe 2mm of down, at most.

While we were down there we heard a thundery rumble overhead at times, but couldn’t see the plane. When we got to the top we found that Chris had had an incredible, action packed wild flight of his D60, with spectacular involuntary aerobatics, and had got it to 341mph! That equals (or beats? not sure) Spencer’s record with the K60!!! What an incredible day! Chris is still raving about that flight as maybe the craziest flight he’s had, and I darn well missed it!

We were all sad that Spencer’s time had run out, and he and Chris had to pack up and go. This was a huge disappointment, because the K100 was ready to rock again. I think if it was me I would have rung my wife and pleaded, but I do admire Spencer’s dedication. If there’s such a thing as Karma, he’s gonna score big time, next time.

This wind was crazy. I was coughing from the dirt in my throat. I was pulling lumps of crud from my eyes, despite having a clip-in for my sunnies that makes them like goggles.

John urged Asto and Sean to see what they could do with his remaining D80. Asto wound it up to 367, and then Sean to 368! This text seems almost like a minor addition, but nobody has ever been that fast in Australia at all, and it’s only 12mph off the outright 80” record!!!

Then Sean got really stuck in with the Deepend and he was obviously prepared to take more of a risk for the glory. It was spectacular to watch as he played different lines. To get a good read you needed to be well across and down the hill, and Sean had no-one gunning at his shoulder to give him instant feedback, so there was a lot of yelling and relaying numbers up the hill. Sean was really bringing the plane to us, and although there were a lot of missed reads, the speeds were getting right up there and he hung in the 370’s when the gusts were good. Then it got better and up to 388, then down again, but Sean was truly vicious with that Deepend and when the wind rose again he was nailing it like mad and he got the 397mph reading. Again, like Astan earlier, he wasn’t satisfied and he persisted, but couldn’t better it. Enormous congratulations to you Sean, for such an amazing achievement with that entire project. Not a bad outcome for your very first big DS moldie homebuild, and it’s vac bagged too. A few people are naturally wondering how a fully molded Deepend would perform.

Encouraged by this, and urged by John, Astan had another crack with John’s D80. He really cut smooth laps ... it did track nicely and looked less work than the Deepend. Asto deserves to be a big dog - he’s a good flyer. He nailed the knife-edge scary line again and again, and scored a huge 380mph, then literally seconds after that speed the D80 shot out of the bottom turn, rolling and pitching. “NO ELEVATOR!!!” yells Astan. Something in the plane had broken. We all watched and yelled as the D80, sometimes inverted, cruised around the valley fast and broke up on landing. John jumped in his Landcruiser without missing a beat and headed down to get it. Very broken, but a possible repair project. The 3rd dead D80 in one day - a shock to all, but huge congrats to you too Asto. In the big league now.

It was clearly crazy conditions and naturally, for me, it was a question of whether I should even attempt to fly the light Opus again. I was aware that the build wasn’t very good, and I worried that something like a servo or control horn might pop in the brutal conditions. I guess it was the temptation of going >300, and the thought that “we’re here in the biggest day ... and I’m here to fly ... you have to have a go” so I got it ready and taped the flaps. I went out the front to launch it but it was just impossible. The plane was getting almost torn out of my hands. Imagine standing up in the back of a ute at 110kph and trying to hold a plane level in one hand and the Tx in the other. No go. At that point I did again think “Pull the pin?” but I got Asto and he launched the plane. I did wonder if it might go backwards (!) but no, it gently penetrated the gale and went up, and I wasted no time diving in.

My main thought was - be conservative. If you can just hold a few good laps together in this, the speed will come. I was amazed how well the Opus tracked. Big smooth circles first and it was ripping out with amazing speed, but I was still too high for the guns. The only way this was going to work was to commit, and get on the line under the shear. I got buffetted and blown up a bit, and tried harder. I only got one or 2 laps on the line and it was shot/ rolled/ sucked/ spat or whatever and this time, my instant up-pull was not rewarded with a plane shooting out upside down ... there was a wooden CRACK and the Opus was no more.

When I got to the wreckage, it had gone into the dirt just below the front of a boulder and the smashed bits were jammed in between the dirt and the rock, protruding out like the end of a feather duster. There were more bits scattered all around. Digging in the dirt I found the broken rear end of the fuse, just like Astan’s had been, and I pulled it out, mostly intact. The ground was soft. Scraping around in the dirt I found wires, little pieces of servo innards and so on. I’m glad I didn’t have ballast in the fuse because my good receiver looks mostly OK. Aaah, well. My heart was sunk. It didn’t take long for the depression and self-recrimination to set in! I really wished I hadn’t tried to fly it in those totally crazy conditions. I wanted to remain the conservative guy who got a good speed but took his plane home to Australia intact. I couldn’t shake off that miserable feeling till the next day!

A funny thing was that we found bits of other planes near my Opus too! A perfectly good K100 flap, and a D60 tailfin.

Matin and Marlan had arrived a while before, too. Matin had brought 2 nicely made foamies ... a Bluto and a special Moth, (sorry forgot name) which looked super slick. There was still heaps of wind, and there were still some planes, but us 3 Aussies were all a bit shellshocked from this huge day of highs and lows. We tidied our gear and talked. I went down to look for more Opus bits. While I was coming back up I heard the Bluto DSing above and fluttering in a very musical way! It was a nice deep BBVVVVVVVOOOOOooooooooommmm every lap! I think Matin was really embarrassed that the Bluto fluttered at 120 or so, but I really admire him DSing it at all in those conditions. It may well have gone faster in less wild conditions. Both the foamies were nicely built and Matin thought the controls were good and stiff ... but Asto was pointing out to Matin that for big wind DS, you need to be a whole quantum higher on the stiffness!

A bit later I was watching Marlan fly his D80 nicely. Still annoyed with myself, I thought - the wind seems to have eased slightly - Marlan is cutting smooth laps. He must have been around 300, and looking neat, when BANG. Same thing again. Rolled in like a snap, killed the plane totally.

So now it was FOUR D80’s dead, and one Opus. All a bit hard to take in.

Well, I’m gonna wrap it up there. As you know we went out (still covered in dirt) to dinner that night with John. Yesterday we went to see the beginning of the California Jets Rally, then flew at Hang Glider Hill with John and Marlan. It was really lovely, actually - my photos couldn’t capture the glory of the sunset with silhouettes of guys hovering planes over their heads. I have to finish up to do the photos, and take my car to be vacuumed!!! Then head off towards Fermin in readiness for tomorrow’s F3F race (boy that thought makes me nervous!).

Till next time ... and thanks for reading!
Andrew.

Astan very happy with a new PB of 258 ... this photo was soon to become obsolete.

Getting the K100 ready.

Me proud of a new PB of 252 ... DAboz is rather chuffed too, but this was another photo to become obsolete due to later events.

K100 ready to launch.

It's up!

K100 cutting laps.

Gunners in position

Local dad and daughter fascinated.

Astan's D89 fuse being retrieved. You couldn't even see that it was there.

The lead was compressed into a wrinkled shape.

Sean and Spencer assessing the damage.

Very happy with a newer PB! But the plane didn't survive. 314mph is huge. But again, it was to be bettered.

Sean flying the Deepend. This photo looks so calm - it belies the crazy wind and screaming plane noise.

Sean had cracked the 300 barrier.

This was some of the wreck of John's D80. The fuse was never found.

This is what can happen to a receiver when it's inside a plane that stops suddenly from 300mph.

Readying the magnificent Kinetic 130.

297mph ... I couldn't believe it

Spencer kissing the K130 for luck .. no actually he's blowing Weldon dirt out from the linkages.

Chris launches the K130.

Magnificent. 94.3 KB · Views: 42

K130 on landing approach after flight cut short by elevator problem.

We knew things were getting serious when Asto got 396. Just after, Sean got 397!

This was a brand new D80 until Chris got mad about something and jumped up and down on it.

Group photo with the Deepend after Sean gave it heaps in the huge wind.

397mph for Sean and the Deepend. Note the Weldon dirt caked on the teeth. Just like a Harley rider who's enjoying life.

Wow. 380mph for Astan with the D80, but the plane's elevator popped and it went AWOL.

My Opus died in a blaze of glory. But no better speed.

Bits of servo from my Opus.

Astan retrieving bits of Marlan's D80 (I think)

Matin, the Bluto and the Raven.

Apr 14, 2011

We are at a"Rubio's takeaway ... Fsntastic food is so c cheap over here! We said goodbye to Astan this morning. John took me and Sean to a jet rally just now ... really interesting but not s fast as DS! You wouldn't believe this but Bruce Tebo has just rung to say Weldon is working and why don't we come up but we have declined as we are too shagged!

You know Brian, Sean and I are actually missing some thermal flying!

After lunch today we browsed through John's planes collection which was amazing and overwhelming, then we went out to fly at HangGlider Hill only a short distance from here. It was nice, and there was some light DSing in a shallow bowl. Marlan came up later too. I made a point of practising hand catches as much as possible and got about 7 hand catches out of about 30 attempts! The SC3 doesn't really float. Sunset was beautiful and I got some nice shots of hand catches of a Taboo DLG and Marlan's Fazer. Then dinner at a place called Marie Callendars which was absolutely excellent food. Highly recommended.

To all those who have been following my threads, I again apologise for not writing the report on our BIG DAY yet. It's 10:30 and my eyes have been stinging all day from tiredness and although I really want to hammer away at it, I think I should get to bed.

Sean and I are hopefully competing in the F3F race at Fermin on Saturday. I'm pretty nervous coz I fly so shoddy, but at least it will make a lot of other guys feel good about themselves.

Hey Damoz, thanks for the nice comment! But I don't consider myself up there with those other guys! When I fly I hear one of them say "oh, your elevator rate is definitely too hot" or "aim out a bit from the hill at the bottom turn, give it a bit of left aileron just before you pull the turn and it gives you a bit of room to correct your line to the gun" or "wow, there's a bit of a yaw there" and I think "what the hell is that guy talking about ... I have no idea ..." !! These good guys have really got something and I'm happy to admit that not only don't I have it; I don't have the faintest idea what it is!!!

Apr 15, 2011

You guys are all too nice. Aussies included. It's 8am now, John B has gone to work, and I am about to embark on writing up something of that incredible day on Wednesday, which now seems like a dream. Until I go and have a look inside my Jeep, which looks like someone has got some dirt and sieved it all over the entire interior. I am going to go to a carwash and vacuum place later ... Thrifty are pretty good, but I think it would be pushing it to take it back as-is!

Sean is on the phone to the AMA (no, not the doctor mob ... the USA model aircraft organization ...) organizing his license to fly F3F tomorrow. It's gonna be interesting ... there are some big names gonna be there and they're forecasting good conditions. I've only seen a guy practising and wow, they really move.

By the way, if anyone is looking at hiring a car when coming over, the Thrifty people have been really brilliant. Nothing has been too much trouble. But don't book it direct with Thrifty. Go to one of the online mobs such as losangeles-airport-carrental.com which show deals with all companies, and pick a Thrifty one. Once in, you can select your car type etc. Those mobs are worldwide and access corporate rates, which in my case were about 60% of the normal desk rate.

Insurance is another issue however. You can get the insurance through the online system, but it was a waste of $220 because I later decided that I needed to get more comprehensive insurance with Thrifty. I'd recommend doing that, but it's almost as much as the cost of the car. My car rental for 20 days was around $900 and the insurance around $700. Crazy hey.

Apr 16, 2011

When we last left off, dear faithful readers, I was at John B’s place on Friday 14th about to head south. John came home and I wasted some more time fondling some of the nicer planes in John’s collection. Hey have a look at the photo of the rubbish trailer outside John’s place ... an amazing pile of broken DS plane bits! Trashed planes belonging to flyers from Bakersfield, LA Australia and probably a few other places! It looks like it’s 3 feet deep but it’s not that bad ... he’s having building work done so the wrecks are sitting on top of lots of tiles and rubble! My Opus adorns the very top of the pile.

The day before, the morning of Thurs the 13th, we had a lazy start at John’s place, feeling more than a little shellshocked from the huge day prior. It was all sinking in, and I didn’t feel depressed any more about the Opus! I had to make an emergency visit to Starbucks with Sean, and back at John’s we explored his workshop/ shed/ whatever. It is fabulous. So big and well equipped with benches, tool, a lathe and drill press, etc. An enviable setup. I drooled over his dirt bikes ... love that KTM. I used to race enduro a bit and I slung a leg over it to pose for a photo ... the heart beat a little faster and the imagination started to wander ... memories of rooster tailing up steep forestry trails ... (snap) no! I don’t want a dirt bike! And I couldn’t afford it anyway, since I took up moldies!!! Wake up Andrew!!

There was so much interesting stuff to see. Two DS Divas, one of which got damaged when a solder joint broke DSing. The new Thundertaker fuse, which Sean fondled and obviously had thoughts of copying ... (see photo). The Mach Dart Slope XXX, which is an incredibly good 60”er, and only went off the radar when the D60’s became available. I fondled the yet-unbuilt Wizard Compact DSX, like Ian’s, which I’d love to have. All sorts of bits from DS planes and projects in process. There was also a beautiful Flash sport jet (by CARF) on the floor - it looked drippingly gorgeous and when John explained its technical assets it sounded very impressive.

But it was time for Asto to go. His family are in Fresno, and the aim of their visit was a long family holiday up the coast to Vancouver. His lovely wife is fantastic and gave him the space for a 2 week sojourn to experience Socal DS ... in fact, that’s the reason Eric, Sean and I ended up thinking about making the trip. So in a way we owe it all to you Asto. I don’t like thinking about the fact that Eric didn’t come ... he was the first to decide to make the journey and meet up with Asto, and with him being our long term mate and most definitely our DS mentor, we feel bad that he’s the one that missed out.

Anyway, back to the moment ... Asto’s time had run out and after some big hugs and best wishes, he backed out, beeped, and drove off waving. We all felt a big lump in the chest ... it was the first step to our big adventure ending.

But there was still time for Sean and I, and John B was super keen for us to make the best of it! He drove us about 40 mins out of Bakersfield, seeing lots of broadacre agriculture (onions, alfalfa, stone fruit etc) and a vast patch of those weird looking oil wells on the hillsides. We went over a water canal which seemed big, until we crossed a huge aqueduct. They do things big over here.

The jet rally was visible from miles away, a big patch of white tents next to an airfield. We drove in and went to the desk for John to sign in to fly on the weekend. Wow, really well organized. There were lots of people there, although it was only Thursday and the rally proper didn’t start till Saturday. These were the guys who came early to settle in. Jets were roaring overhead, landing and taking off, some making smoke trails. At the sign-in desk there were racks of T-shirts, hats and so on saying “California Jet Rally 2011”, food being prepared, a tent with a presentation area and stage for talks etc, next to a huge motorhome trailer thing. The only thing missing was coffee ... I was starting to get a headache ... normal for me after a mega days’ flying and after Wednesday’s events, I expected a motza. We went wandering and immediately JB was introducing us to people. Dave Schulmann was next to us - he’s a jet guru, master flyer and manufacturer of the Turbinator and some other jets I think. He gets to travel a lot with the jets and everyone watches when he’s around ... a bit like me in the DS circles really (haha!) His best jet had broken and he couldn’t bring it but he later flew the Turbinator and it was most impressive, with all sorts of aerobatics, low inverted passes, and more.

I’ve never had anything to do with jets at all ... I am purely a glider guy ... and I was surprised by a few things immediately. Firstly these jets were big! Man, some were huge! Judging by the row of huge trailers parked along the back, I guessed most had driven, but as you can see in the photo there were some enormous boxes, apparently for freighting the jets, which made Sean’s and my glider boxes look tiny! Secondly, these things make noise like real jets!!! They are the real deal. When they get them set up and get them running they absolutely roar like a 747. I saw a guy holding one as the other chap throttled it up and the plane was rocking and bucking as he gripped it. A few more horses and he would have been heading skywards. For startup and throttleup they park the jets with the tails facing into corner bends from airconditioning ducts, so the exhaust is directed upwards and doesn’t raise a dust storm (it’s a dusty desert everywhere).

John introduced us to lots of guys - and amazingly Bob Kelly, our generous gunner was there too! We had said farewell at Weldon the day before, thinking we’d never see each other again. It was great to see him. I was chatting with Bob and a nice older guy wandered up and started to chat, and Bob said that we were visiting from Australia and that our interest was gliders, particularly dynamic soaring. The guy said nicely “well, I guess after all it’s the same sort of thing we do, only slower”. Bob set him straight real quick! But of course I wonder if the guy really believes us. I mean, how COULD a glider do 468mph when technically superior jets with roaring engines can only do 350?

There were rows of tents with racks of jets. Even trolleys that you could wheel out of the trailers holding 6 or 8 jets. Guys fiddling with jets, guys selling equipment for jets, bunches of guys talking about jets. There were lots of beautiful scale jets, but several parked next to the runway were incredibly authentic with the rivets showing on the skin and every detail of the cockpit looking every bit like the real thing.

Hey did you know that some guys can hover jets like a 3D plane, and they are able to rotate with ailerons, even though there is no forward air speed and no propwash? It’s because the jet thrust pulls down the air above it, creating some airflow over the wings.

There was lots of fiddling with fuel and stuff, and the smell of the kero jet fuel was just like the airport. One jet caught fire, sending people running for a fire extinguisher, but they got it under control quickly and unperturbed, taxied it out and took off. One of the jets was roaring around doing gentle aerobatics and suddenly the noise stopped. I thought it must have gone in, but I looked around and saw one jet gliding steeply in and it made a nice landing. He was lucky. I asked a young guy who seemed to know it all “what happened” and he immediately replied “bubble in the fuel line! Happens all the time!”. I have to say gliders seem so more appealing to me.

We hung around for a couple of hours, and the lady got some coffee going. It wasn’t Starbucks Espresso, but it would have to do. Desperate situations call for desperate measures. This was a situation of genuine medical need. Sean and I were just about breaking into a nervous twitch by the time we got a cupful. I don’t know whether we have this in Australia, but they have bottles of cream of different flavourings that you add to coffee. Wow, it was nice. French Vanilla and Chocolate Almond, or something like that. I went back for more.

John decided to take us to a “Tulios” for lunch so we drove past a couple of enormous feedlot dairies ... weird because in our world black and white cows are associated with green grass, but each of these places had about a thousand Friesians but not a blade of grass to be seen anywhere.

The Rubios was excellent. Try it if you’re here. On the way back to John’s he showed us where he worked, and we stopped in to visit his local hobby shop. Sean and I almost never get to actual hobby shops and we had a great time. I bought some fluoro orange sticker stuff. I liked the Blade MSR mini heli and the price was great, but I decided against it as the charge plug was US and the Tx mode was wrong! Sitting as a passenger you see all sorts of stuff. A huge car parking lot where all the shade covers were solar panels. A tandem bike for 3 people riding around.

We got back and organized some washing and charged up some gear, and headed out to go for a fly at HangGlider hill - one of John’s closest slopes. It was a great slope. Huge steep front. As I posted earlier, the wind wasn’t strong but we enjoyed a classic late afternoon of flying till sunset. There was some light DSing in a shallow bowl. Marlan came up later too. I made a point of practising hand catches as much as possible and got about 7 hand catches out of about 30 attempts! The SC3 doesn't really float and the small rocks everywhere under the grass beat up the fuse a bit, and I managed to break the CA’ed nose off again ... but just CA’ed it again and taped it up and kept flying. John flew and DS’ed the Pike Giant and a Taboo DLG. Marlan flew his Fazer F3J. I had a fly of the Fazer and the Taboo on Mode 2 ... Sean too. It’s doable. Sunset was beautiful and I got some nice shots. Then dinner at a place called Marie Callendars which was absolutely excellent food. Highly recommended.

Next morning ... Friday 15th, I spent most of the morning writing the BIG report, then went to the carwash and vacuum place (and Starbucks, twice), spent some time with John (got his Imac working on the wireless), copied the Stratos memory from one transmitter to the other using John’s PC, and finally headed off. I had to give myself a stern talking to, to stop myself going back and making John an offer for the Wizard Compact DSX. Although it would be a great price for that model, I doubted that my wife would agree!

I hadn’t travelled between Bakersfield and LA before without going via Weldon, so it was all interesting. Some really spectacular country. It was a hazy day and through the milky air I could seem mountains and thought “yep, they do have much bigger mountains over here” and then I realized that there were much, much bigger mountains towering above those and I could make out snow streaks on top.

I got caught up in traffic beyond Santa Monica and it was really slow for an hour or so, but soon I was back on the road to Fermin. It was about 5:30 pm which is broad daylight, and I went straight to the slope. It’s absolutely beautiful there. I felt like I was back home, soon to check into the same motel for the 3rd time! Rick was there, about to leave, and Chris soon arrived. Dave Cortina had just been flying and had a fright when a thermal (on the coast???) came thru and he sunk out and recovered. We sat and chatted. Dave had been to the F3F World Champs in Germany last week and told us lots of stories and showed photos on his phone. Finally the wind picked up and we all got out and had a fly.

Well after sunset we stopped talking and flying and I checked back into the motel, then Chris insisted that he was taking me to a Sushi bar. The background to this is that I’ve said numerous times that I eat anything, but I’m not that keen on Sushi. Well, I can say that Sushi and I have had a misunderstanding and that I really loved it. All those lovely bits of ginger, the soy sauce with Wasabi and soaking the fancy bits of fish in it ... mmmmmm! It was great. The first thing we did while waiting for a seat at the bar was to order Asahi beers and I don’t know whether that stuff is 15% alcohol or we were just tired, but we were carrying on like a pair of mellow drunks (well, OK, after the Sapporo beer too). A great night.

That’s it for now and I’ll post the Fermin F3F race report when I have had a sleep!

I had stayed up late and was lying doggo in bed at 8:15 when Sean knocked on the door fully dressed and said he wanted to get his rental car back before midday to avoid paying another full day. Through the sleepy fog I could see that the implication of this was that I’d have to drive to LAX to bring him back down for the F3F race here at Fermin, and then take him back later in the evening. I said I didn’t think it would work as the race briefing was 11:30 - traffic can be shocking here on Saturday mornings. This was Sean’s last day and he had to have his big glider box packed and check in at the airport by 9 or 10pm for a midnight departure. I asked when he was going to pack the box, so he rang Spencer who was only available to open the workshop (where our boxes are) early ... which meant that the box packing would also have to squeeze in before the race and he’d have to carry it with him... so in short it was all starting to look impossible. Sean wasn’t going to make it to the race, and I felt really, really disappointed about that. I offered to throw in a few bucks to help him keep the car for the extra day, but he wasn’t going to be swayed. Anyway, .... sorry for the long prelude but Sean headed off and didn’t make it back to the race.

I hung around calling Sean occasionally to see if he got things sorted early enough that I could try to make a mad dash to the airport and back, but it didn’t work out.

The postscript to that little essay is that 1) the race didn’t even kick off till after 1:30, waiting for the wind, and 2) Sean’s plane got delayed 12 hours!!!

It was a bit strange going to the F3F race without Sean. Staying till this Saturday for the race was his idea and I was keen. It would be fantastic just to see some of the best guys in the world F3F racing. I have my own timing gear and have been trying to get F3F racing going around Brisbane ... so far with little success. Racing in the event would be a nice badge of honour but to be honest I was more excited about seeing Sean in action. His flying skills and style have F3F written all over them - anyone who’s seen him on the frontside, or at our F3F practice-fun sessions already knows that. The US guys saw me as the “visiting Aussie international” but I felt like the poor cousin and would much rather have basked in Sean’s shadow!

Fermin is literally 2 minutes drive from here - you can see the Korean Bell, which is on the hilltop where you land, from my motel back window only a few hundred metres away. I could tell I was getting nervous ... forgetting every little thing, running back and forth from the car, locking the motel key in the room etc. Finally I got down there and parked near the colourful spread of planes on the vivid green grass. It’s a beautiful scene and yesterday morning was classic - a clear warm sunny day, big ocean (looking rather glassy), sailing boats and ships and the Catalina Islands looming up big through the haze on the horizon. It’s dead easy to get great photos at our flying events - all the right ingredients are there ... a hill with a view, colourful planes, glider guys with grins on their faces and wowed spectators.

Straight away there were guys there who were familiar. Great to see Mark Canfield again and before long a bunch of us were locked in animated conversation about DSing. There was Dave Cortina who I’d met yesterday. Justin Link and his girlfriend Debbie who I’d met here last week. It was really laid back. Knowing how good these guys are I had expected it to be a bit intimidating but not so. I quickly got to meet the contest director Adrian, and a few other guys like Sam and Matt. Everyone was keen to meet me and asked where Sean was. Target (Chris) and David Klein said Hi, and even Kyle Paulsen came over and said Hi. Everyone was so friendly and easy going - it’s great.

Kyle and Dave Cortina (maybe some others too, I don’t know) had been over to the F3F World Champs last week. Dave was telling us the day before that it was really challenging. He’d had a bad trip and reckoned he was in klutz mode the whole time (gee I know how that feels!). Kyle had got 3rd which was a bit of an upset ... a couple of young Austrians pipped him. But Kyle’s flying style is so amazing that every time he flew, all 50 people stopped and came up to look. I can understand why ... I saw it later and it’s crazy. The slope in Germany was just a 12 foot drop into the ocean. Cold strong air, but a really small barrel of a lift band. You had to do all your 30 seconds lead-in no more that 20 feet up, because that’s where the air went laminar. You couldn’t go back behind the slope at all, or you were in a rotor. Lots of planes were broken due to bad landings. Some landed in the ocean too. Sounds really challenging.

Back to the Fermin race ... there was a nice icing of colourful F3F planes on the lawn. Quite a few Freestylers, Ceres, Aris, Cyril, Extreme and more. Matt had a nice light Wizard Compact 2X which I instantly noticed, given my Compact fetish. The wind was light and occasionally someone threw out a plane to cruise around, then landed just over the road at the bottom of the hill on the soft grass - this is an OK landing when the wind’s light and there’s no rotor over there.

The time went by fast, but it was several hours till the action started. Adrian ran the pilot’s briefing, the main thrust being safety. There was a hundred point penalty if your plane went back over the line between the flags during your run - this was to reduce the risk of a crash injuring people in the park or walking on the path right next to the wall. Everyone had to keep an eye out for flyers who needed to cross the road, and help them across in a break in the traffic, while the flyer kept his eyes on the plane. Fermin is such a brilliant spot, but in such a public spot it wouldn’t take much to go wrong for the regulators to shut it down to flying. He explained that Base A was on the right, so you had to drop in from the right to start the timing. They had brightly coloured flags on the fenceline at each base, and a string sight for the button-pressing guys. The string sight at the left end was like the ones we used for our F3B practice I think, but the right one was on an adjustable tripod stand and had 2 big string triangles flat against each other, with about 1.5” gap between them so you could look through the gap when timing.

David Klein gave a short talk, making an appeal for support for the Team USA F3B boys to go to the world Champs later this year in China ... they need to raise $20,000! They have done heaps of work in getting sponsors for prizes for a big raffle and in a week or so they’ll have a website allowing you to purchase tickets ...just google Team USA F3B. Everyone applauded the very young Coby Paulsen for flying in his first F3F race! He flew a foamy Multiplex Easy Glider. I admire Kyle for making his kids a top priority amongst his sailplane racing passion and other commitments. Those are the important things.

Adrian read out the start order (there were 14 competitors in total- fewer than I’d expected) and we took a note of who’s before each of us. I was after Tim and Justin. I watched some of the first runs and was impressed with the smoothness. The guys gave me some tips: Turn so you come back into the lift band on the lip as quick as possible. Stay absolutely right on the lip for most power, but beware - if you over-turn you’re going to crash into the brick building or something. The first big difference to what I expected was how they gained energy in the first 30 seconds. When we’d practised it at home I thought the idea was to climb out like a thermal plane, even using camber, adn then camber off and drop in when the beeper got into the last 5 seconds. But these guys launched, curved left and arced up into a pump/ wingover immediately, then into a second bigger pump - sometimes inside the course, sometimes out. Sometimes they squeezed in 2 full pumps before punching up for height outside the course.

My turn came up in about 20 minutes. I was nervous. Another guy always launches for you. The Stratos DS went out (still with its ballast!) and I was too floaty with the initial setup for the run. When I went to go out of the course I turned far too wide and out of the energy band. The flagmen told me I was overshooting the flags generously, and I got 68 seconds. The other guys seemed to be around 55 ... oh, by the way, this first run was a zero count run.

On the second run I did a bit better, but as soon as I’d launched a couple of guys said “Oh, you’re heavy!” I know I’ve been putting on a few kg’s since I gave up cycle racing, but I didn’t think it was that bad. The hide of these guys, I mean some of them are a bit chunky themselves! Cheesh!!! I wiped away the stinging tears and tried to concentrate on the racing. Close to the edge ... not too close, that’s freaking me out ... keep it neat ... gaining speed, nice. At the left end (base B) I pulled the turn hard and David yelled “watch it!” as he could foresee the Stratos lazily overturning into the cliff or the building. I was already maxing the ailerons and it was all OK, but you could see that it bled off speed. Time was the same; 68 seconds. OK, time to take advice and get that ballast out! Easy to do .... Chris did a really nice job of the ballast in this plane.

The next round I got 55 seconds! Woo hoo. Then 57, then 53, and my best time of the day was a 50. I thought it was funny that the other guys were trying to break down into the 30’s (which they did) and I was trying to break into the 40’s!! (which I didn’t!). I could tell that my flying was a long way off the standard - you really need to fly like the plane’s an extension of you, and I really felt like I needed a hundred hours of practice to get there. I was really thankful for the coaching and tips from Mark Canfield and David Klein - it helped a lot.

As the wind picked up stronger the gun flyers came into their element. It was amazing to see. I can truly say that I found it a bit scary to watch at times! If you stood in the “pits” behind the building, you cringed as many times it looked like the plane was about to explode into it. And it was fast ... seriously fast. A DS-style whine at times. The energy in the Fermin lift band is legendary, and these guys GAINED speed all through the run and punched out like light air DSers! I can’t use words to describe the way the guys flew and turned ... there are different styles, and you have to see it. It was funny at dinner last night watching Kyle and Target intensely discussing a turning technique, using a drinking straw going back and forth across the table!

Kyle’s style just after launch is quite amazing. I can’t even describe it except to say that rather than 1 or 2 pumps, he does vicious but smooth pumps then gets into some sort of Immelman loop/rollout thing, and shoots across out of the course and really fast back in. Hard to believe how much energy he can pick up. Once on course the turns are cracking but the leg across the lip looks like it’s on rails - wing banked slightly windward and no control inputs for most of the length.

There was one drama when one of the guys (Tim I think?) flicked in a hard Base A turn and his plane crashed down the face. It wasn’t far down so someone clambered down and found it with barely a scratch ... just a couple of cracks in the top skin near one tip. Everyone was amazed ... “Man, you are BLESSED!!!” He kept flying.

Sadly on the last run, Mark Canfield’s plane mysteriously went off air just after his run - he was parking it in the sky for the landing routine and it just went off air. It’s a write-off, unfortunately. The battery was good, he couldn’t find any fault, it was on 72mhz ... can’t help wondering if it was a shoot-down because you do get guys occasionally flying foamies up the top of the hill, out of sight of us.

Unfortunately I missed a turn on each of my 2 final runs, robbing me of first place on the day (just kidding) and I ended up in last place. Well, 2nd last if you count Coby and his EasyGlider! A fantastic experience to be there and to fly. I was impressed with how friendly and welcoming the guys were ... you’d think I was doing them a favour being there, they thanked me so much. Well, I guess my last place did make them feel better about themselves ... not that they needed that at all!

A couple of onlookers stopped and asked questions about the planes and we got into a deep discussion about the models, composite construction, F3F, how DS works, and so on. Several other guys stopped and joined in, and I lost track of time talking about my favourite subjects to these enthralled listeners! So when everyone headed off to dinner at a fish taco place we were late and Kyle was phoning Chris to find out where we were!. It’s going to be funny going back home and not having restaurant meals each night!

I’m writing this on Sunday morning at the Fermin motel. It’s a different day, with a low fog covering the view of the port. I’m gonna buy myself a new DS plane today - I have an offer of a couple of fully built, as new Opus’s to pick from ... plus, Chris has the Shockwave. Which one? Or both??

Apr 17, 2011

Catching up ... I hope you guys realize how much effort I'm going to to feed your ravenous appetites for updates on our adventures! Here I am sitting in the motel room on the laptop when I could be out talking to movie stars and stuff like that.

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Apr 17, 2011

F3F comp

And here are the photos from yesterday's F3F comp. I regret taking a few more ... but I got plenty of video. The stills can't capture the rush and speed of the racing!

I'm gonna have to do the captions for all these later ... running out of time here.

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Apr 18, 2011

Sun 17 April - last day in USA

I’m sitting on the plane now in the dark - only a couple of hours to go till we land in Brisbane. Still in a bit of shock at just how close I came to missing my flight, and worried about the planes in the box. I really am a dumbcluck sometimes! I pushed things too far this time.

You’d think my last day would be a pretty boring windup compared to the incredible adventures, good fortune, generosity of the locals and so on. And it did start that way ... sitting in the motel room writing stuff and uploading photos. I’ve enjoyed being the correspondent as well as the adventurer, and it has honestly been a huge pleasure to do these reports given the strong feedback from all sorts of glider guys around the world. I haven’t replied to each of you individually ... I tend to shut this thing off as soon as I’ve uploaded ... but thanks to each and every one of you who has followed us/ me on this amazing trip. I’ve always been a bit of a writer but my profession as a veterinary consultant doesn’t involve much creative writing! So I’ve had a few forays into writing the odd magazine article in the past ... dirt bikes, sailboarding and more recently RCSD. But this has been by far my most enjoyable writing experience.

Anyway, back to yesterday dear reader. From the motel room I rang Qantas to provide last minute contact details and found that I could save money by prepaying the extra freight for the glider box. On the way over I was very lucky to be upgraded to Business class and they allowed the box for free. I was worried now how much extra I would be charged. It would be $150 extra as long as the item was under 23kg. If you prepaid online (and printed out the receipt) it was $105. If it was over 23kg it would be at least $50 more. No item was allowed to be over 32kg under any circumstances.

I had a lot of planes to pack! I have to warn you that if excessive obsessive spending on gliders by people who don’t really deserve them upsets you, skip a page from here. As I had sort of planned before the trip, I splurged big bucks on buying gliders to take home. There’s such a pool of good quality used slope/ DS planes in Socal, at good prices and well put together, that it seemed like a good investment to fill the box before coming home! There was my SC3 (looking rather the worse for wear) and the beautiful Stratos DS I’d bought from Daboz- the one I flew in the F3F race. I also had another whole Stratos DS that I’d bought for a great price from John Buxton ...it had been damaged in a mid-air in a Man on Man race over 2 years ago. Nick had repaired the wings nicely, but it needed a replacement nose keel. John, like Chris, absolutely loves the Stratos DS as an all round fast fun light to medium air DSer that can thermal and fly in 7 knots, but whip it up to 180mph and do crazy acro stuff. I even got John’s steel wing joiner for it too plus the replacement nose cone I ordered, and this plane was built rock solid, like Chris’s. Wow.

Flyboyjimi’s Opus was the first “proper” DS plane I’d ever owned. My Wizard Compact BPV was a lovely plane to fly and DS but topped out at around 180mph. I recently tried to get a Compact DSX from Europe ... but the deal fell through. So now that the Opus was trashed, and I’d tasted some fast DS, I had a hole to fill! I wanted something that could go 300-ish on those terribly rare occasions that we have the conditions.

So I put an advert in the DS forum a couple days ago, putting the feelers out for a replacement plane, and Tony Vu popped up with a couple of Opuses (Opi?) for sale. Tony’s done some good flying with the big guys in the past but hasn’t been out much lately. I liked the idea of an Opus. Not as fast as a Dynamic, but a fast, tough, great handling plane that could go back to Oz with me as a memorial to the Opus that was sacrificed in my Weldon PB efforts!! Stupid I know, but true.

Then there was the Shockwave DS - another one of Flyboyjimi’s planes, previously owned, built and beefed up by Chris. Since I first spoke to him before the trip, he’s been resolute that it’s the best buy around and the most fun crazy heavy air DSer. The Shockwave is a rare plane - only a few were built and it’s been over 300 at the extreme when other planes were faster, but what characterises it is how hard and wild it can fly. With nearly a 3m wingspan, it has a broad envelope. Fast, big, heavy, strong and unique. Sounded just like my thing, and although I held off till the end, I decided to grab it and I was picking it up from Chris this afternoon. That’s probably the plane that’s going to be the most fun and excitement in our conditions back home. Wow again.

I know this is crazy but I was still thinking about the Opus, and by mid morning I decided - what the heck, I might never be back here again. The price was excellent, both planes were either new or near new, and it would be my 300 plane. Tony’s place was only half an hour away so I rang ... but it went straight to voicemail. I texted - no response. Well, no worries. I had to visit a shopping mall or 2 to find a few gifts for my kids so I motored down his way so I would be close when he rang. By about 2pm I was in his area, still ringing and still getting no response.

The first mall I went to was one that Chris said people fly from across the world to shop at. South Coast Plaza, it was. I wandered in through Sears (which is much like a glorified K-Mart) and into the mall proper. I walked through arcade after arcade of shops oozing opulence. Faccionable. Gucci. Georgio Armani; hundreds of really super fashionable and expensive shops. I came to a big desk with a “Concierge” sign and asked the lady “Are there any shops here that would have sorta touristy stuff, like T-Shirts with American themes and so on ..” I hadn’t even finished the sentence when she shut me down with a firm “NO.” She was almost offended that I thought her fabulous mall for the rich might sell tourist trinkets. I doubt that there was a single item in those arcades, except for the coffee, with a price tag less than $200. I headed back out but not without spending time to pick out a couple of tops for the girls in the Sears clothing section. The checkouts surprised me a bit ... the service was really slow, and the cash register PC’s looked old. You stood in a long single line till one of the 2 staff called you.

Chris had also mentioned a big hobby shop near Tony’s place (Gee it’s fantastic having your own on-tap travel advisor!!). I headed down there, still trying unsuccessfully to contact Tony. After some stuffing around I found the hobby shop which was certainly huge - it had a big single seat rib and spar glider hanging from the ceiling. I tried to buy one of those receiver battery testers that puts a load on the pack, but they had no idea. I browsed tools and transmitters. The Airtronics S10G was $379 - a great price. Everyone is raving about this radio, packed with features for the money, and it has such a fast latency that if you flick your sticks and let them bounce, the ailerons will bounce synchronously. I was starting to regret investing in my MPX Cockpit SX with the M-link 2.4!! John Buxton is really giving me a hard time about getting a faster radio!

Hmm. I was wasting time but really, I had nothing much else to do except chase down some things my kids had asked for (perfumes, believe it or not!!). So the guy in the shop pointed me towards another mall. I must have been getting tired, because when I got there I tried to find parking spots and ended up in front of boom gates for paid parking (that were closed). I had no idea where I was going. This mall looked like a small city and I was swearing in fluent Australian as I did illegal U-turns and freaked out other drivers with my last minute decisions. Finally I found the free parking on the other side, right next to the roaring freeway, and wandered in. I did have successful gift hunting, after lots of walking. This mall was quite amazing. It had alleyways that felt a bit like old English streets - lots of character, cobblestone steps and colourful fun storefronts, radiating out from a centre (or I THINK it was the centre!) where there was a small ferris wheel. It felt narrow and cosy. Another corner had a big fountain display, and another spot had one of those water things for kids where they can run around in their togs while water spits up from jets in the ground. I was thinking how my kids would have gone nuts in this place.

Chris was going to a family dinner at his sister’s place and they had very kindly invited me along for a real home cooked meal before I left the USA! It was now time to head off to get there by 6pm. I left a message on Tony’s phone saying I had tried, but had to go now.

I updated Chris on my progress by phone - he was on his way too from his place, and amazingly we worked out that we were almost in the same position on the freeway! What are the chances! With a bit of phone coordination I was soon sitting on his bumper!

Next thing there was a call from Tony! He apologised that his phone hadn’t been working all morning, but I had to tell him that I had no time left. However, he said that as long as I was serious about purchasing, he didn’t mind driving up and meeting us later! How great was that! We arranged to meet at Spencer’s later on.

Chris’s sister Julie, husband Fred and 5 big kids live in a nice area of Palos Verdes where people are walking Shetland ponies down the road and peacocks wander the streets! There was quite a crowd - Chris’s parents were there (I’d been to a lovely dinner at their place before) plus 4 of the 5 kids, girlfriends and so on. I can honestly say that we all talked absolutely hammer and tongs for the entire time I was there and I felt completely at home. They were lovely people and I was very fond of their kids who are just so nice and grounded that Julie and Fred have lots of reasons to be proud. Chris and I dragged the family in to watch some of the DS videos on a big Imac, including the recent one of DSing at Weldon taken with the an 808 keychain camera strapped to the tail of an Kinetic at 250mph! I was able to print out the baggage receipt from Qantas, and I urged their 20 yr old daughter Jillian, newly engaged, to contact my daughter Caitlin through Facebook as they both sing and I reckon they have a lot in common. But I was embarrassed that due to my imminent departure the meal was rather rushed - it was actually a combined birthday dinner for 4 of the family! Man, the food was fantastic and the company excellent. Although we were late I HAD to have a look at Fred’s dirt bikes. He’s a really pro dirt bike racer and has several times (including last month in Texas) tried to qualify for the USA team to race the Motocross Worlds. He has ridden in International 6-day Enduros, and has a rack of impressive trophies and photos, way back to when he was a kid. I wished I could have stayed for longer.

We raced off and I had to withdraw more money from an ATM for the likelihood of buying another plane. Chris was back in his car, racing to meet Spencer and Tony at the nerve centre of the Kinetics . Finally after what seemed an interminable drive through tens of miles of shops and traffic lights I was starting to feel really nervous and it dawned on me that although I was sure my flight left at 11:50pm, and although I’d flicked over that booking page many times, I hadn’t really checked the flight time for sure. And I was now running late and still had to check over an Opus, unpack crap from my car, pack up and screw the box shut, return the rental car and hope that the box’s weight was OK.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I also wanted to take back the replacement centre panel for Ezza’s Kinetic 100 which IS NOT LIGHT! I could feel myself getting really jumpy.

At Spencer’s at 9pm or so, Chris already had Tony’s 2 planes spread out and said they were both excellent and both perfect in strength and build. The more expensive one was cosmetically like new, but I bought the cheaper one (at $1000) which had a couple of scratches and chips ... no big deal for a ruffian flyer like me.

Packing the box was easy, actually. The big wing bag I got from John B with the Stratos held all the Stratos and Shockwave wings comfortably. I still had the bags from Flyboyjimi’s Opus, so the new one went straight into those ! (after unbolting the elevator from the fin). Chris pulled the V-tails off the Shockwave, and it all fitted quite easily. I used Spencer’s drill to seal the flat lid with the 20 or so screws. But boy, it did feel heavy! I was worried. But no time to think now! A very quick pack, we folded the seats down and the box fitted in, some final rushed hugs and goodbyes, and I was off to Thrifty, about 8 minutes away. I have to say that without the incredible friendship, assistance and generosity of Chris over the last 2 1/2 weeks my trip would have been entirely different. It wasn’t just a trip, it was like a fairy tale for me. Just incredible, I hope I never forget any of it, and Chris I can’t thank you enough. Spencer, your generosity has also made this trip do-able. Your workshop close to the airport saved the day with our boxes; you loaned me a fancy radar gun and a GPS and helped far more than your work and family commitments should have allowed. John Buxton - you are just so generous we don’t know how to respond. Opening up your house, letting us use stuff, taking us places, man, it’s amazing. To all of you Socal and Colorado guys- you treated us like we were doing you a big favour, not the other way round. We didn’t deserve such royal treatment but we sure enjoyed it. I’ll have to stop.

Into the Thrifty shed, the returns guy took about 30 seconds to check the car over and give me my receipt! No questions asked, no extra charges. The shuttle bus was idling outside and I ripped my box and bags out, threw out the clothes, chargers, rubbish, glider parts and stuff which was spread throughout the Jeep, and spent 5 frantic minutes in the half-dark cramming it all into my bags. Then onto the bus ... the box fitted in there easily, and we were off ... but I had butterflies as we crawled through the thick traffic and I had to sit there fidgetting. I pulled out my folder and checked the flight details .... oh, shhheeeeeyitttt! The departure time was 11:20, not 11:50! You idiot! How could I have done that! I started chewing my fingers harder.

Dropped off at the terminal (this airport is massive; many roads to different terminals) I grabbed a trolley and raced in with the heavy box balancing on the top handle. At the queue I waved to a counter and told them I was late, got straight to the counter, handed over my passport and stuck the glider box box on the scale ... 35.2kg!! Oh no!!! It was overweight by 3.2kg! I looked forlorn and pretty much said it was almost impossible to take anything out of it, hoping they’d make an exception. Someone consulted with the supervisor, but the outcome was unchanged - they flatly refused to take it and said that the box couldn’t go AT ALL unless I got it under 32kg. Plus, I was so late that if it wasn’t sorted in 15 minutes I would have to miss the flight. There was no option ... I had to urgently unpack and repack the box and get it below 32kg, and FAST!

I dragged my gear away from the checkin counters, unlocked the toolbox, found that I’d left my good screwdriver in John B’s Landcruiser, so I had to use a little dinky screwdriver to undo all the screws. I pulled everything out of the box to see what could be done. It was pretty quiet at the airport so there was plenty of floor space. My first thought was maybe the K100 panel (which is strong as steel) might fit into my suitcase but no, it was too long. Back into the box it went. I remembered that Sean had had a similar experience in Brisbane and got through by removing ballast, but the only piece of lead I could find was in the Opus - I unscrewed it and put it in my suitcase. But I was sure I was still well over and I couldn’t find anything that could be removed. But wait ... the big red padded double wing bag could be removed! I could strap it to my suitcase! I didn’t like the idea, but this was panic stations. I pulled the 2 sets of Stratos wings and the Shockwave wings out of the red bag and lay them back in the box. There were good covers on the Stratos wings anyway, and thin protectors on the Shockwave, so it wasn’t like they were scraping on each other. The ladies at the desk called out that I’d really have to hurry as they were boarding and I still had to go through Customs etc. I was desperate and I knew that if the box came in at over 32kg, I wasn’t flying to Brisbane tonight ... or certainly not with the box. I threw out my souvenir broken Opus fuse, took the loose elevators still laying on the floor and slid them as carefully as I could inside the hard sides of the suitcase plus a few wing joiners etc, put the fuselages back in, packed all the bubble wrap back in and like a man possessed, screwed the lid back on the box. Raced over to the desk where the ladies were waiting ... 30.2 kg!! My perfectionist mind argued that I should pull the lid off and pack the empty space with some clothes or something ... I was not happy that there was room for stuff to move around in there ... but there was not a second to spare. The ladies forgot all about asking for my prepaid freight receipt or charging me the extra for the box being over 23kg! They urged me to get all my bags and the box on the trolley and over to the customs oversize baggage inspection.

I folded up the big padded wing bag, strapped it to the suitcase (using half of the new tough clear tape I’d just got from Chris!); careered over to the customs guys, loomed in their doorway and started to get the 3rd degree about the contents of the box. Not sure if they X-rayed it, I can’t remember, but they decided to be pedantic and wanted to look inside! Oh, sheeeet! Just a few minutes before it was all spread out over the airport floor for everyone to see! Surely they weren’t serious ... but they were. They weren’t put off by the 20 screws and got me to unlock the toolbox and pull out the screwdriver. When I tried to get it out of the toolbox he firmly pushed his gloved hand towards me and told me to back off! I was in a stressed state and still unsure how this was going to work out. I asked if I could help but they told me to just leave all the bags and the box with them and for me to head upstairs. I left the toolbox padlock open so they could relock it. As I walked away, carrying just my backpack and camera bag they were painstakingly slowly undoing the screws!

They must have given me priority because they grabbed me (and another lady who was late) and took us straight to a customs desk. Everyone was already on our plane, but the screening lanes were choked with people going on other flights. It was painfully slow and we had to remove shoes, belts, pens ... the lot ... and once I was through they took off with my laptop to check it! Fortunately it came back, I went only a few metres to the gate, and was on the plane. Once sitting in my window seat above the wing, I felt shaken like a wild animal that’s just escaped the hunters! It wasn’t an experience I ever want to repeat. I hadn’t had time to change my clothes, check my backpack or anything. And as I sat there I started to obsess about what damage might befall the gliders in the box or the nice bits I’d jammed into my suitcase. I felt pretty bad.

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Well, now I’m back home. The flight was OK, but after the business class experience on the flight over I really felt like one of the poor people being crammed into a tiny window seat with not enough room to reach the floor! I got a few hours sleep I think, unlike the guy beside me who slept 95% of the way! Arriving in Brisbane at 6am the first thing I noticed was just how small Brisbane seems after LA! The Port of Brisbane, whose lights brighten the southern horizon from our Redcliffe beaches, seemed like a small half-built facility after the massive expanse of cranes and berths I could see from my room at Fermin. There was green grass and it looked so ... unoccupied compared to LA. Many visitors before had said to us that Brisbane was like a small country town, which mildly offended me! Now I really understood what they meant, and I was glad for how Brisbane is. On the way home with Janet I made a pledge never to complain about traffic again! After the intensity, density and expanse of LA with its dominating intimidating crawling web of freeways, the Gateway seemed like a nice small road!

I raved to Janet about little bits and pieces of the trip, and how amazingly well it had all worked out, and quickly choked up with emotion. OK, I’m a soppy idiot, and maybe I’m overtired and overwhelmed. But when I think of how incredible this experience has been ... how generous the people were ... the bonds formed with the DS and F3F community around LA ... how special it was having a family dinner with Chris’s family last night ... and how important people are to me - far more important than sights to see or fun stuff - it makes me cry and the same thing’s happening to me writing this now.

The glider parts are all perfectly fine. I unpacked everything and checked it all before I even attacked the coffee machine. It’s funny how going away makes you see things afresh. When Janet picked me up my first thought was shame at how our van is so dirty inside! It looks disgusting! Gotta do something about that! I felt sad but at peace seeing our disabled daughter Sarah again. Arriving back home, wow, I forgot we had that big new printer. I love the colour of our kitchen benches. One big first impression is that my shed looks pokey, totally overcrowded and messy. I guess seeing John Buxton’s shed has raised the bar rather high, but something does need to be done. I don’t even have enough racks to store these new wings!

The other kids (those that are home anyway) were all in bed, so eventually I stomped upstairs and yelled that they were lazy sleep-in slobs - rise and shine - waddya think this is??? Bush Week?? Bleary eyed they hugged me and it was all totally normal back in the von Berky household. The circles of life. It brings tears to my eyes, and it is good.

So there it ends my friends, the story of the Aussie DS Safari adventure is over. My apologies for waxing lyrical but it might be a long time until I get the opportunity to write for such an appreciative audience again! Thanks again to all of you whether you’re my old mate from down the road, my new mate from LA, or someone in the UK or a further flung corner. I wish you all the chance to do what we did ... if that chance comes up ... go for it